Change of heart
by Mydaiel
Summary: This is a story about certain someone finally getting sick of being called weak, scummy and trashy and deciding that it's time to rise to power and start acting more like your typical isekai hero. But it's not his style to just jump into action and endanger himself. That is unless he discovers something very interesting...
1. Chapter 1

**Spoliers for the LN volume 15 ahead. **

We are starting off right in the middle of volume 15 with whole Serena mess finally reaching it's conclusion, but for the sake of convenience I'm going to just straight up change some events that happened earlier in the main story.

Not to mess with the source too much let's just say three things. One: there is no upcoming attack on either the capital or the city of Axel. And two: Vanir didn't give Kazuma all those forbidden potions instead something else happened that is going to be briefly explained soon enough.  
Also Serena didn't kill Kazuma, good for him right?

I apologize If that sound like an easy way out to you.

Without further ado, let's begin.

* * *

Change of Heart

Chapter 1: Encountering the Exploit.

"Why does my life has to suck so much?" Said Kazuma Satou, currently lying on his bed, still thinking about what happened earlier this morning.

Darkness finally managed to restrain Serena and the demon king general was now at the mercy of Kazuma and his companions.

All damage dealt to her will be returned to the attacker. This is a simple curse but just as it usually goes the simplest things are the most problematic as there is no catch that can be exploited.  
No matter how we look at this situation, there is only one thing that can be done. I really don't want to do this, but there is no other way.

"Megumin please return the bottle to me."

"Oh no, you are not going to do something as stupid as making her drink this ridiculous potion."

"Megumin is right Kazuma, we can't afford to have you become even more useless."

You fucking toilet goddess, there is no one in this world more useless than you and that is counting those bat shit crazy maniacs you call your followers.

Leave my precious Axis cult alone you shit-NEET.

As we were arguing I noticed that Serena was frantically gasping for air. I could have guessed that this was going to happen. I looked at darkness, who have put her in a sleeper hold. Lalantina's face looked just like a certain "art" from Japan I was more than familiar with, which could only mean that our eroness was also fond of choke play. Darkness really was a lost cause but she was not the only idiot present in this room.

"Both of you seems to have forgotten what I said earlier, if she drinks this elixir both me and Serena will be reduced to level one wich means that she will no longer be able to act as the general of the demon king."

"But.."

"Megumin I understand but this is something I decided myself and I am ready to do it. This is the last time I do something self-sacrificially so let's just be done with it." Well maybe I shouldn't rise flags like that but I don't really care right now.

"If you really are certain about it..." With those words megumin gave me the bottle that was going to render me next to useless. I took it and moved closer to serena who was close to passing out from the lack of oxygen.

"So Serena let's see how this works on you." I forcefully opened her mouth and poured the entirety of the potion down her throat. Almost instantly I could feel some change about myself. It's not like my stats rose that much as I've been leveling up but some strength still left me as my level dropped down to one.  
At the same time Serena finally lost consciousness, just as I thought in her case losing that many levels must have meant a significant loss of power. Well now she is as good as dead so that means we win.  
With how troublesome her power was I really am surprised that I didn't die this time. Well she was going to chant some death spell earlier but darkness interrupted her just in time. For once she acted like a proper crusader and protected me I will give it to her but still... As I looked how disappointed she was now that serena's curse stopped working I just couldn't bring myself to thank her.

That's how it went with Serena, this whole thing was certainly unlucky but it was not the reason Kazuma was so upset right now. It was actually what happened a few hours later that got him in the bad mood he was in right now.

After serena was finally dealt with we gathered in the living room to discuss what to do next.  
Now was the time to finally reveal why I was so eager to use this bullshit potion. It was all part of the greater plan I came up with.  
With the defeat of another general the barrier around the demon king castle is going to weaken even more and Aqua could probably destroy it right now. What this means is that it's finally time for the final showdown with the main villain himself. Or at least it would have been if not for the fact that now I am pretty much a death weight. So first things first I should go and restore myself to the previous level before we can plan anything else.

"We should probably start with some easy monster hunt quest, let's go to the guild first" Said Megumin.

Of course girls were more than ready to help me.

"Don't worry Kazuma I can tank any enemy for you, even if it means being repeadly assaulted and mauled while you struggle to deal any damage and kill them." Darkness's face was getting red.

"Even if you die I will resurrect you so just hurry up Kazuma."

"I refuse."

"Hee, why? We have to act fast and kill the demon king so I can finally return to heaven." Aqua screamed.

"As if killing the demon king would ever be possible with you useless bunch. And now with me in this state it's beyond impossible."

"That's why I said to go do some quests so you can level up…"

"I refuse, I said again. I would rather go and find someone to level me up in a convenient way than stick around with you and be eaten by frog and other monsters.  
In fact for a month I refuse to do anything regarding demon king in any way. During this time I will deal with my situation myself, I don't need any of you to help me with that."  
He didn't lie but he didn't tell the full truth either. His plan was to get as fast as he can to the capital.

Once I get there I will hire some mercenaries or higher level adventurers to go and farm exp with. I'll meet with iris and persuade her to let me stay at the castle so that my safety is secured. Who knows maybe I'll even tell others that the barrier around the demon king castle is the weakest it's ever been and they will gather forces and go kill him themselves. Yes, this time I'm not going to put myself in danger, no matter what those three have to say.

Seeing that he is serious about this, megumin , refusing to give up so easily, tried different approach.

"Kazuma if you agree to go with us, I will give you a reward." As megumin said those words she lifted the corners of her skirt a little bit.

Kazuma gulped, couldn't say he was not interested in what megumin had to offer as he remembered the sight of her panties. And if this is something that finally lets them cross the line and become proper lovers then maybe he shouldn't turn her down just yet. To be honest just thinking about what a combo of steal and her lifting her skirt could do...

"Uugh look at this creepy grin. He probably fantasizes about something beyond perverted., you really are the worst you lolizuma"

"Oi who are you calling a loli Aqua?"

"Nope still not doing that, you will have to try harder than that to change my mind." He said, thinking that he could bargain for something better. If they are going to drag me through hell, then they better prepare themselves for something equally bad. Also who said I can't just roll with my plan while taking advantage of the three of them at the same time... Yes this is the ultimate plan, let's wait for the next offer, I can't show them that my resolve is weakening. Just as Kazuma was starting to enjoy this turn of events.

"Ok so what about..."

"Stop darkness, let's just leave him be. I have a feeling that if we continue this dialogue he will do something unmoral or straight up illegal to the three of us."

Fuck did I overdo it? And why is Aqua so witty and perceptive only when it's not convenient for me?

"Guess there is no other way, we will give him a month and then proceed to vanquish the demon king, if you are not a total trash then you will join us Kazuma but right now I'm not so sure about you."

Aqua's words surprisingly hurt him. Usually when they argued he didn't give a shit about her insults but this time was different.

"I guess you are right, as much as I don't like lying around doing nothing, I can use this free time to master my explosion so that the demon king won't stand a chance. Huh, guess this was asking too much of Kazuma after all."

"I'm heading home to discuss this with my father, it's better than seeing kazuma avoid his responsibilities and by using the influence of my family we can gather many allies to help us with our cause."

So it's decided, now you can go and lock yourself in a room for a month you shittNEET.

Kazuma was angry, in the heat of the moment, he told them all about his plan regarding escaping to capital and leveling up using questionable tactics, and at the end he added:

"So I don't care if I'm not going to see any of your useless asses for the next month, no I might as well not get to see any of you ever again, I don't care anymore, next time I see eris I won't hesitate to be reborn, instead of returning to this atrocious world. I'm going to my room."

Needless to say, the girls weren't happy about his words. He could hear their insults for the solid 10 minutes after he slammed the door to his room.

And that is how he found himself where he was right now.

My plan backfired but how the hell could that bitch Aqua make me feel bad for actually reaching the outcome that I wanted in the first place. He should be on his way to the capital right now but he couldn't find the motivation to get out of bed. Being called shit-Neet, even if somewhat justified, was becoming annoying. Even if he wanted to change, what could he possibly do?  
This whole thing was meant to be just like in those isekai anime he watched. Being transported to another world as a chosen hero destined to kill the main villain and save everyone, having a harem of cute girls fight for his affection, that was a life he expected. Not this fuckery that he was given. Having no broken abilities, not being gifted in any way, having troublesome idiots as his party members and most of all dying several times already.  
To give insult to injury, after becoming somewhat capable in terms of strength, he had to reset back to the square one. With that thought he looked at the corner of the room where few bottles of this cursed potions still stood.

"Moi sees that in the future you will be willing to pay enormous price to get every last bottle of this elixir, as it will open a new path for you, Kazuma satou."

New path my ass. I bought those potions because they were cheap and because for what I knew Vanir's prophecies were always right. I thought that I could find some use for it, but as it didn't work on anything other than humans and even in this case they had to drink every last drop of the potion for it to had an effect, it was a totally useless garbage.

Kazuma sighted and took out his adventurer's card from his pocket. Earlier he only looked at the corner of his card where a large number "1" regarding his level was. After that he shoved it deep into his trousers, not wanting to see the results of all his blood and sweat gone, but right now he needed to know how much damage has been done.

Let's see, level one indeed, stats don't look all that lower than before but all his precious skill, his only saving grace. Were still there.

"...Huh? WHAT THE FUCK?!"

"Lurk."

It activated normally as it usually did in the past. Kazuma was shocked by a sudden revelation. This potion was meant to revert one who drank it to level one, so it was only logical that it would also remove all acquired skills as well.

Suddenly Kazuma jumped out of his bed, there was one thing that he had to check, if it really works as he thought then… he grabbed one more bottle of the potion and rushed out of his room.

He entered the kitchen and took out something he had hidden a long time ago.  
Dragonlizard meat. This was probably one of if not the best food in terms of exp given when consumed. He fought the urge to just eat it raw and cooked it quickly. After consuming the whole thing he looked at his adventurer card again. Level 4 it said in the corner.

Wow it really is easy for the adventurer class to level up. Now how should I do this? Thanks to hanging out with a lot of different people I have a lot of skill that I could level up, well for the sake of science let's start with this. Kazuma spent two available skill points on "treasure detection". Leaving one point left undistributed he drank a potion that he brought with him. Again his level was reduced to one but his new skill was unaffected.

"Treasure detection."

It seeed to be working fine. Kazuma took out an empty glass from the cupboard.

"Create water."

A small stream of water started filling the glass.

"Ok so my old skills are still fine, but there seems to be a catch" He said as he again looked at his adventurer's card.  
"Seems like the skill point I left unused disappeared." He tried spending points on anything else, to see whether it really vanished or just wasn't showing on the card but nothing happened.

"This can prove to be a little tricky in the future, but for now it's just a minor inconvenience."

So the way it works is that it resets the one who drank it back to level one and lowers one's stats to their basic level. But then for some reason it leaves any learned skills and spells unaffected while also removing any unused skill points that were obtained earlier.

Usually in MMOs things that let you reset your character either give you a clear start meaning they remove anything that you learned or they let you redistribute your skill points by giving you backthe ammount you spend learning stuff. Kazuma wished it would work like the latter because it would make it easier to abuse but his plan could still work with what he was given.

Right, his plan.  
The moment he saw his skills unaffected by a potion he already knew how to exploit it. The way this world leveling system worked, was that the ammount of exp required to level up increases with the level of the individual, being very small at the start, and rising significantly with time. Adventurer class had a significant boost to earned experience which meant one thing.  
If he kept on getting exp and resetting using the potion, he could, in theory, get unlimited skill points.  
But still, this was just a theory. He already had experience with becoming insanely powerful by exploiting a bugged game mechanics, but this was a real life we are talking about right now. Also is it really what he wants to do? Does he have it in him to finally be serious about something?

Lost in a train of thoughts he didn't even notice as he wandered back upstairs and back into his room. He lied on the bed, still unsure that to do.

Then somebody knocked on his door.

"Kazuma." It was megumin

"Oh Megumin, do you need anything?"

"I'm going out to cast my Explosion" She said without opening the door.

"Oh right, wait a second I need to change my clot..."

"I'm taking Aqua with me, I just wanted to inform you that you will be alone in the house for the rest of the day."

"Oh… I see. Then I'll wait for when you come to sleep with me. Actually there is something I want to talk with you about."

"I don't think I'll be coming today Kazuma. You can go and sleep with your perfect little sister in the capital for all I care."

"L-listen Megumin it's really important…" He stopped talking when he heard quick footsteps on the stairs. He went and opened the door. Megumin wasn't there. It seemed she run off as fast as she finished talking.

Well it was to be expected, Megumin is probably still angry for what happened earlier. But then why do I feel so shitty right now? I can't deny that I grew fond of our explosion trips and sleeping together became my favorite part of the day, so after not getting to do those things for a while I wanted to experience them as fast as possible.

No, that is not all there is to it, after all that happened today, I wanted to relax and spend some time with her more than ever.

He wanted to just go and chase after her but at the same time he was mad that she just treated him this way.

"Fuck, that should I do" Kazuma yelled. He was contradicted. Earlier he felt that he was right on his part. But now after he learned of this unexpected effect of the potion he wasn't so sure anymore. Should he change his mind, explain the situation with everybody and start genuinely working toward slaying demon king or should he just run off to the capital without saying anything to others? Both options felt equally tempting.

"Yare yare daze, I guess there is only one way to choose something." He took out a golden coin from his pocket.

"Heads for telling them and tails for running off."

He tossed the coin high into the air but while he looked at the spinning gold piece another thought crossed his mind, and it changed everything. He grabbed the coin before it touched the ground.  
There is a reason why people choose a coin toss to decide things. It's not because they want a pure chance to do the job for them. It's because in this few moments of uncertainty you actually realize what you really want to do. And that was the case for Kazuma as well.

I'm not going to work with those 3 but I'm not running away either. I'm going to abuse this potion to become insanely strong in secret until it's time for my grand entrance as the savior of this world.  
His plan was simple. He was going to continuously rise his level to a certain point, learn some useful skills and spells and then drink the elixir again, repeating the cycle. He'll just need someone to help him start this off and teach him some offensive abilities so that later he can just farm alone. Well he knew exactly who to ask for help he just need to wait for her to arrive at Axel, which he though would not take too long considering how often she visits to challenge her rival. Yes the plan was perfect all he had to do now was wait until..

Hold on a second, he thought, as he looked at the few bottles of potion remaining in his room.

"This is clearly not enough to get me where I want to be." A second though crossed his mind and he started to shiver.

"Damn it, I need to get to wiz's shop quickly!"

What he remembered was that Vanir indeed said that the time will come when Kazuma would be willing to pay enormous price to get his hands on this potion, but money was not his concern. He grabbed his wallet and dashed through the door. What Vanir is mostly interested in are negative emotions, so there is a chance that he is going to destroy all he has in stock just to fuck with Kazuma and feed off his anger and frustration. He needs to act fast so it won't happen.

I just hope it's not too late already Kazuma thought.

* * *

Magumin was standing near the main door of the mansion.

"How much longer are you going to make me wait Kazuma."

Suddenly she heard some heavy footsteps on the stairs and saw Kazuma running towards her. Finally, her plan seemed to work as intended.  
She knew, that if she acted a little cold to him, he would finally get his shit together. Still, she expected him to come chase after her right away. What made him wait so long? Well it doesn't matter now.

"Kazuma..."

"Megumin? What... I see, so you were just messing with me again?!"

"Don't yell at me, you would never act on your own initiative, you coward. Now stop acting like a little bitch and..."

"Get the fuck out of my way Megumin."

With those words he pushed her aside and ran out of the mansion.

Magumin was speechless. Did she overdo it earlier? She has never seen him this angry before. But it wasn't all there was to it. The look he had on his face, it's just like if something important was being taken away from him. Was it her fault? Was it because of what she said earlier? And when she remembered his words, that he was not going to come back the next time he dies…

This was when she was no longer able to hold the tears back.


	2. Chapter 2

Change of heart

Chapter 2: First Steps.

Maybe I was a little too harsh to her, Kazuma thought as he left the mansion behind.  
But when I saw her there I understood immediately, she was just trying her games on me again. Forget it, I will make up with her later, right now let's focus on more pressing matters.

Few minutes later door to wiz's shop burst open and breathless Kazuma enters inside.

"Welcome, Mr. even weaker than you were before. You made it just in time moi was about to close for today."

"Vanir, let's get straight down to business, you know why I came here, don't you?

Vanir noded.

"So just state your price" Kazuma said while throwing his wallet on the table.

"Unfortunately moi is afraid that no amount of money will help you obtain what you desire."

"What you mean by that?" Kazuma said with his voice trembling.

"The potions that the useless shopkeeper made are no more. Moi used them as a base to brew more cost efficient elixirs that people will actually buy."

Kazuma couldn't believe what he heard. Why nothing in this world goes the way he wants, why does it have to be this way? When he though he finally found something worth giving his all, this happens. If only he wasn't so hesitant the first time Vanir offered him the potions…

"Oh moi, what delicious bad emotions, this is like a full course meal."

"Stop fucking with me Vanir, you knew this was going to happen, next time Aqua comes around here I will make her to send you back to hell."

"Anger is not much to moi taste. Well then, seems like it's all moi will get from you in this regard. But worry not Kazuma Satou, moi has something to offer you that will prove to be just as good as the potions you are after."

"Those potions that you said you used for other elixirs were the only thing I would be interested in."

What if moi says that the thing just as good as those potions is just more of those potions?

"What?" Vanir wasn't making any sense right now.

"But you said that they are no more."

"Yes,all brewed by the useless shopkeeper. Moi never said anything about those made by moi."

As Vanir said those words he took a wooden box from behind the counter.

"Moi was expecting you to order a large amount so the stock has been replenished."

Kazuma let out a deep breath.

"Ok so how much do you want for them?"

"Million eris for each bottle."

That was ridiculously high but Kazuma was in no position to bargain, at least not in regard to the price alone.

"I'll agree but only on one condition."

"Let's hear it"

"You will not sell those to anybody else but me. Not now and not in the future."

"Moi will agree to your terms. Moi sees that helping you on your path will bring moi unimaginable wealth in the future."

"Also I want you to leave them in the shop so I can pick them up when I need them. I don't want my party to know that I'm buying more of them".

So with that taken care of I can finally start my way to become the strongest hero. Wow it sounded cliché as hell, guess there is no helping that, but first...

"Vanir can I ask you something else? Also I need to speak to Wiz as well."

* * *

"So neither of you knows why the potion didn't remove my skills?"

"Yes, it should reset everything without exceptions. It's also weird that it deleted your unspent skill points after you drank another one. Looks like in your case it works a little different, although I don't know why Kazuma-san."

If I had to guess that would probably be because I'm not from this world. Still I don't like the fact that there was an unexpected side effect after all. What if instead it turned me into an infant? Well I guess luck is still on my side.

Now then there is one more thing I would like to ask and for that I would like some insight from both of you. As Wiz and Vanir were very powerful individuals who possessed vast knowledge there probably was no one better in the whole world to discuss this matter with.  
As you know very well about my how my party operates and you've seen us in action few times already I would like to know what spells and abilities do you think will be best for me?

How my party operates, well it would be better to say how it doesn't operate.  
Me, Megumin, Darkness and Aqua, meaning an adventurer, crimson demon archmage, crusader and an archpriestess who was in fact a goddess. Only knowing what our roles are could lead to an impression that this teamcomp was almost perfect. We had a strong frontline with our crusader, then comes a mage with overpowered racial bonuses and archpriestess who is the very definition of op with what she could do with her wide range of supporting spells and the fact that she was you know, a literal goddess.  
Out of us 4 only I was somewhat lack lusting, but being and adventurer a Jack of all trades I could in theory take any role depending on situation, be it fighting in melee, using bow or even magic. But that was how it should have been.

Instead our crusader have no offensive capabilities, archamge could only cast one spell, which while being an insta kill most of the times, renders her paralyzed and unable to do anything and archpriestess is almost always useless and does more harm than good during combat.  
I don't even need to say what that means to me, as being the only capable person in out there means that I have to take the burden of the entire party on my shoulders, learn things that leave me with no offensive options which in turn means no exp gain, makes me underleveled compared to others who steal all kills and this vicious circle keeps on going until we are on the verge of doing anything at all.

But surprisingly enough there is a solution to this hopeless situation. Let's look again at our party, but from another perspective.

We have almost impenetrable defense up the front, but no damage here. One time nuke that can obliterate anything but still it's not something you can call a consistent damage source. And finally we have a healer that can even resurrect you, should you die, but again no damage.  
To make this party into what you would call a meta teamcomp, if this was an MMORPG, I simply need to become the damage dealer. In theory I don't need anything other than offensive skills and spells.

Well maybe there is one thing that I need that is rather on the defensive side of things. The most op and unbalanced spell I came across so far – teleport.  
But other than that, Darkness will be able to tank anything so I don't need defense. Aqua will always be able to heal me, so I don't need survivability. And if for some reason I can't kill enemy myself, I can always learn some curses, spam them on an opponent to lower his magical resistance and then have megumin blow him to pieces.  
Lastly if all goes south then I just grab everyone and get the fuck out with the teleport.

Suddenly we have a solid basic tactic, a trump card and an escape option, let's call them plans A,B and C  
Now the question is what skills should I get to best suit this tactic? Should I go for mage type DPS, or physical warrior/assassin? Teleport is so op that I need to learn advanced magic regardless of what I choose. But relying solely on magic for both plan A and B is not exactly the best tactic so maybe I should invest into swordmanship and archery? Damn it if only darkness was any good in physical combat I wouldn't have this problem.

"If you are going to acquire enough skill points to afford it, teleport is something that will definitely come in handy."

"I know right, but it would require advanced magic, which costs... I looked at the learnable skills tab at my adventurer's card, 30 points. And on top of that each advanced magic spell costs 20 points to learn.  
Huh, explosion only costs 15, and doesn't require an advanced magic?! That seems like a scam to me, seeing how useless that spell is."

"Perhaps it's because you are constantly exposed to it, Kazuma-san. It's also possible that it will be more potent when you actually learn it."

"Sure it sound good, but I still don't plan on acquiring it, one explosion crazed maniac in our party is enough."

"Yes, ligh of saber is much better than some useless explosion, but that is to be expected as it's the ultimate weapon of me, the next crimson demon village chief."

"Oh, ligh of saber is definitely something I want to have, good point there Yunyun.  
… Wait a second how the fuck did you get in here?!"

"I walked in when you were daydreaming about something just a moment ago, Kazuma-san. There was nobody present in the mansion, so I came to this place instead."

"You come at the best time possible yunyun, actually I was waiting for you to arrive in Axel, there is something important I have to tell you about."

"Ehhh, Kazuma-san what do you mean by that?" Yunyun said while blushing vigorously. "Y-You have megumin so even if you are going to confess to me, I would have to reject you..."

"Hey, don't get the wrong idea, I want you to help me level up. I came across a method which will give me pretty much unlimited skill points, but I need somebody competent to help me with that." I told her about the unexpected side effects of the level reset potion, and about the plan of how to abuse it.

"Well, that sounds good and all, but why me? Why don't you ask megumin and the rest of your party for help?"

"Not a fucking chance. Megumin and the rest are the reason I ended up underleveled in the first place. You are the only one I can ask for help, please lend me your strength Yunyun."

Well, when you put it that way, guess I have no choice, I will lend you the power of number one crimson demon mage, Kazuma-san.

Lol so easy, I knew she would agree instantly if I used the right words, Kazuma thought.

"So without further ado, let's go with the plan, for the start..."

"Actually Kazuma-san, there are two more things I want to tell you." Wiz interrupted him

Sure, go ahead Wiz

"Well first off, there is a place I can teleport you to, which will give you plenty of strong opponents to kill, so you can gain exp much faster than normally."

"Oh, that sounds great let's do this right now, so Yunyun can mark this place with teleport…"

"No Kazuma-san, I'm afraid that with how weak you are right now, it's impossible for you to even enter this place. Until I'm certain that you will not be killed instantly there, I won't grant you access."

"You are probably right, as it stands now, I'm not in the great spot, but once I learn advanced magic I'm sure me and Yunyun will manage.

"Actually this is also something I'm concerned with. Can I see your adventurer card for a second?"

"Huh, sure."

I gave Wiz my card, seems like she wasn't pleased with what she saw there.

"As I thought. With how low your mana reserves are, I'm afraid that you can't cast even a single advanced spell right now."

"Damn it, now that is a big problem, how much more mana I need to cast high level spells?"

"I would say two times more than you have right now, and that is for spells that have an average cast cost. If you tried casting explosion, it would probably burn through your life force and kill you in the process."

"Why is explosion being mentioned all this time? Anyway, yeah that is concerning, before the reset, my stats were almost maxed out and my mana was nowhere near twice the amount I have right now, well I will probably need to put many point into increasing my mana…" Suddenly my face went pale as I understood.

"Seems you have noticed."

"The potion resets your stats, so it would mean that even if I'd increase my mana that way..."

"It will all be for naught the next time you drink the potion."

Fucking shit, this is bad news, how the hell am I going to make use of advanced magic if I'll never be able to cast a single spell?

"Actually Kazuma-san I think I might a solution for your problem. It's something I came across recently, a skill called equilibrium"

This sounds promising.

I left the book regarding it at home, so if you don't mid I will teleport for it and come back shortly.

"Don't bother right now, I actually want to come to your village, so we can go there together tomorrow. As of right now…"

You can continue with your planning outside, if you have nothing else to buy, moi will close the shop for today.

"Actually Vanir, there is something I want you to get for me."

"And what would it be?"

"Manatite. A lot of it."

* * *

"Man that was a hell of a day, I'm exhausted." Kazuma grumbled while jumping on his bed. It was way past the dusk when he returned home, but there was no one present, so after bath, he went to his room.

"Time to sleep, I have a feeling that tomorrow won't be any easier."

It didn't take long before he went into deep slumber. While he was sleeping, for a moment he though that he heard the door to his room opening and felt something warm pressing into his back. But before he could make a single thought, he fell asleep again.

* * *

When he awoke, sun was already up, he got out of his bed and looking at the corner of his room, he noticed that the few remaining bottles of the potion vanished.

"Guess I was right to leave the rest at Wiz's shop."

He walked downstairs and into the kitchen, once again mansion seemed to be empty, were the girls avoiding him, he wondered.

"Well, they are probably still mad at me, so I can't say I'm surprised."

After eating a large breakfast he grabbed all of his equipment and went outside into the direction of the town.

When he arrived at the Wiz shop, yunyun was already waiting for him.

"Good morning Yunyun, hope you had rested well, this is going to be a long day."

"Good morning Kazuma-san, of course I'm ready to prove my worth as the number one crimson demon mage."

She keps on saying this title, if megumin was there to hear this I'm sure she wouldn't let her without making a scene, Kazuma thought as they both entered the shop.

"Welcome you, who have the weakest job and you, crimson demon girl. Moi has prepared everything for today so take it and be gone."

After that he gave us a large package that shoved inside my backpack. We walked outside of town. Quite a bit from the walls was where out first objective was located.

"So I believe you know what we will be starting with, don't you Yunyun?"

"Yes" She gulped.

Earthshaker.

After she casted the spell, a small local earthquake followed and stopped just a few seconds later.

Well, her reaction was justified, I though as the ground started shaking slightly. As far as low level farming was concerned… trembles started to increase, there was no better mob to hunt…

And then few of this creatures that I was more familiar with than I would like to erupted from the ground.

THAN THE GIANT TOADS, oh shit here we go again, I thought while drawing out my sword.

After a while the landscape was filled with the frog corpses. While we were fighting more and more of them started emerging from the ground and at some point I believe that we were fighting with more than ten at the same time. Well fighting is not the right word, it was more of yunyun kiting them around with the teleport and firing fireball to weaken them, while I simply used lurk and killed them one by one.

So far the plan was going well. I looked at my adventurer's card. Level 18, no it was going more than well, this was incredible. In a few hours that it took us to carry on this small genocide, I was already back to my previous level, before the reset.

"Time for a little break yunyun." I said as I sat down on the grass and started taking a few things out of my backpack

"I'm fine, let's continue."

She said that, but at the moment she was looking miserable, this was to be expected, as to kill this many toads, she used almost all her mana and at the verge of collapsing like megumin after each explosion.

"No need for the tough act, here, this will help you." As I said that, I opened the box which Vanir gave me earlier and gave a small blue star to yunyun.

"Are you sure, Kazuma-san? This is worth quite a bit."

"I bought them for you, so please help yourself."

"If you say so..."

She took the star into her palm and closed her eyes for a moment to concentrate. After a second the star disappeared and yunyun was no longer looking exhausted.

"Unbelievable, to think that this little amount was able to replenish all my mana at once."

This is why high quality manatite is so expensive I thought. Looking at the content of the box I held in my hands, there were thirty more similliar sized stars and also a few dozens of even smaller ones. Those were meant for me and if everything goes well, they will be used later this day. The content of the entire box costed me more than a 300 million eris, so this was quite an investment already and this was just a tip of the iceberg in what else I needed to buy.

A good thing is that everything we are going to kill today is related to some kind of quest so some cash will be earned back, but it's still going to be heavy on my pocket.

He went to the guild yesterday and enrolled on every monster hunt quest that was available. He didn't even read any of them. As they are going to wreck havoc the entire day, they will probably do all of them anyway, so no need bothering with that.

"Well now we get to the main focus of this entire thing." I said as I learned Intermediate magic for 10 of my 17 points. Because I needed magic for the next part I put 3 points into fireball and another 3 to make it more powerfull. Next up I drank the potion and threw away the bottle. After a little more rest I put the box back into my backpack and we ventured deep into the nearby forest.

"Enemy detection."

"Seems like we are at the right place, are you ready yunyun?"

"Anytime."

"Lurk."

After I casted lurk on the both of us we creeped closer to the large spider like creatures that were slowly moving between the trees.

"Endregas. And I see some warriors between them. This is a relatively small swarm but they multiply rapidly and could overrun the entire forest sin the near future. Seems like they are grouped up nicely, still It's going to be a little rough, ready when you are Yunyun."

"Here I go, bottomless swamp."

Yunyun casted the movement impairing aoe between the entire group. The insectoids started sinking inside the mush while they spew their venom around like crazy. This is why you don't want to be anywhere near them during the combat.

"Let's finish them quickly, we don't want to alarm the entire swarm. Let's see how they like this."

"Fireball."

I lunched the spell into one of the smaller drones to see how much damage it would do. As expected id wasn't enough to kill it, but the second fireball did the job just fine.

Even though they are vulnerable to fire, it still takes two spells to take out even the weakest ones.

"Yunyun, start working out on the warriors, I will kill the drones myself." As I said those words I took out one of the little stars of my pocket and shot out two more fireballs. This seems to be my limit at the moment I thought as I used manatite to regenerate mana, and continued spamming fireball at the endregas. While I was busy with the little ones

"Light of saber."

Yunyun used her strongest spell to cut out the legs of all warriors.

As I finished out the remaining drones I turned my attention to the dying warriors. Three fireballs for each and we were finished with all of the enemies. After the last of the endregas was slain I activated lurk and enemy detection again and waited. Seems like the rest of the swarm was alarmed and more endregas were rushing in our direction. Most of them were caught up in the bottomless swamp, but some of them managed to close the distance between us. Be backed off a little and then yunyun casted another bottomless swamp and after a while of spamming fireballs another group was slain.

So far it was going good, but the hardest part was still ahead of us. I put more manatite stars into my pocket as we went forward. Also as I leveled up to level 9 right now I used all the points to upgrade my fireball to deal triple damage, meaning that I should one shot the warriors yunyun weakens. This is also as far as I could upgrade the spell while not being a mage. I could still lower it's mana cost but as long as I had the manatite stars I didn't need to worry about it.

If I remember correctly the quest stated that a nest of around 30 insects infested the forest near Axel. So far we killed around 15 drones and 7 warriors so there was not much more left. But I needed additional firepower for a reason.

"Here it comes, I sense something big. Be prepared yunyun."

A large creature emerged from the woods

"Arachasae, they often accompany endregas and act a sort of a queenguard for the swarm. Stand back Kazuma-san one drop of his venom is enough to kill a man."

Yunyun positioned herself between me and a large spider.

"Freeze gust."

After she casted her spell, arachasae was frozen solid, then...

"Inferno."

Due to the enormous temperature difference the armor on it's body cracked open and it's vulnerable insides were exposed.

A few of my upgraded fireball were enough to put it out of it's misery.

Yunyun used another star to regenerate her mana and I followed suit. It's time to kill the queen.

"Farsight."

I could see the queen of the swarm and a main nest of the endregas few hundred meters ahead. There were also 7 more warriors and one arachasae protecting her.

"This could prove to be difficult so let's split them up."

Yunyun nodded and show three fireball into the warriors. The difference in our strength was enormous as even though yunyun wasn't investing much into fireball, her attack was almost enough to kill the warriors. Crimson demons sure were overpowered.

But not everything went according to our plan. Rather than only warriors rushing forward while arachasae stands back to guard the queen, the entire pack including the queen attacked. I used all my mana and managed to kill the warriors before they reached us.

"Teleport."

Before arachasae managed to close the distance we backed out a solid hundred meters and with the same tactic of freeze gust and inferno followed by my fireballs the creature was slain, leaving only queen left.

It was an enormous creature, almost twice as big as a arachasae, but because of its size, it was slow and not very agile so after a couple fireballs from both of us, it was killed as well. After destroying all of the eggs and burning the nest to cinders we made our way of the forest and after reaching the fields, we made another break and discussed what to do next.

"So how's your level now, Kazuma-san?"

"16, seems like giant toads are still superior in terms of exp gain, than whatever else we can find around Axel."

"So if I'm right if leaves you with 6 free points, right?"

"Yes, do you remember how much this skill you talked about yesterday costs?"

"20"

"That's rough, seems like we have no other way, I will reset once again and then let's gather 20 skill points." As Kazuma said that, he invested his remaining points into decreasing the cost of fireball.

After that they hunted everything they could find without going too far away from the city. Soon the nerby forests were filled with burned corpses of all kinds of monsters.

I hope we didn't mess with the ecosystem too much. Anyway seems like we are ready to go. So yunyun let's go to the crimson demon village.

"Teleport."

* * *

"Ok, so this is the book you were talking about?

"Yes, it's an old tome about skills and magic spells. Actually it's so old that it's name has been lost in time as well as some of it's content. She pointed out at many missing pages. But from what was left I learned of this one very weird skill."

"Equilibrium, a skill wich increases your mana supply based on the number on non-magical skill acquired while also increasing stamina based on the number of spells and magical abilities learned. This sounds like a super broken skill, I wonder why I never heard of it before."

"Well in theory it sounds powerful, but there is a catch. If you have an advanced job it loses one of its effects."

"What do you mean by that?"

"For example for a warrior this skill no longer grants bonus stamina but instead gives you enormous amounts of mana. Warriors can't use magic so this skill becomes useless for them. For mages it's also pretty bad deal as they have no use for such a supply of stamina as they cannot use for anything other than running. And why would you run, when you can simply teleport anywhere, it's pointless."

Seems like nothing in this world works as intended.

"Well, what happens when an adventurer such as me uses it?"

"It doesn't say."

"Huh?"

"No one in the whole history got it as an adventurer. It simply costs too much to be worth learning at the start where your options are limited. People only learned it after switching to advanced classes and then it turned out that it doesn't actually do what it's supposed to do."

"Great so you tell me that if I learn this skill, that cannot be refunded in any way, anything could possibly happen?"

"I would say that the worst case it simply won't do anything, but maybe it turns out to be a perfect solution for you. It's worth a try in my opinion."

"There is another problem. I don't see how I would learn it. It needs to be showed by another person, and from what I learned here it's unlikely that anybody bothered to lean it."

"Surprisingly enough that is not the case. Just look at your adventurer's card."

"Huh? It's already there, ready to acquire. How is that possible?"

I" don't know, I was as shocked as you were when I first saw this happen. It's like a world's basic rule or something, anybody who hears about it is able to acquire it, regardless of their class."

Was is worth 20 points? With only 10 more I could learn advanced magic. But then what is a point in this if I cannot use any of the spells. I've made my decision.

"Ok, let's do this."

I clicked on my card and suddenly felt something change. I could feel the surge of energy spreading throughout my entire body, the feeling was so strong that I felt nauseous. Then I looked at my stats and my jaw dropped.

"Yunyun look at this."

"Ok show me… Wait it has already increased that much, how is that possible?!"

I don't know but I love every second of it.

"Well explosion is still out of the question, but with this much mana you should be fine with at least a dozen of advanced magic spells right now."

Yunyun stopped for a moment, looks like she was amazed by the potency of Equilibrium.

"Kazuma-san if this is really the case then combined with your endless skill points method… you could possibly become the most powerful person in the whole world and that is no an exaggeration."

I laughed. Loudly. I couldn't help but laugh like maniac, this was so good finally things start to work my way. Goodbye mr always weak adventurer, it's finally going to be like in those shitty isekai series, but first…

"Yunyun, let's calm down a little, now's the time to plan out our next steps." I said while trying to suppress my excitement.

"Yes you are right I was getting a little ahead of myself."  
She cleared her throat.  
"So now that the mana issue has been dealt with, what is the next big objective, Kazuma-san?"

"Learning Teleport." I answered without a moment of hesitation.

"That's what I thought, 30 skill points for the advanced magic and 20 more for the spell itself."  
"Huh" she sighted. "There is still so much more work to do..." She looked at the sun slowly getting down.

"Let's finish for today, we are both tired and the progress is going way better than expected. Tomorrow let's stick around the village and focus on getting me the teleport."

Kazuma checked how they were doing in terms of supplies. Seems like we have enough manatite to get us going for some time, but it won't last forever. Vanir should have a second package ready sometime soon, so after they are done with their objective tomorrow, he should probably focus on other thing he ordered from the shop, but that will have to wait a little more, as for now…

"Ok, then I will teleport you back to Axel, see you tomorrow at the shop."

"Thank you, but I would rather stay at the Succubus lingerie inn here, than return to Axel."

"Did something happen?"

"Let's just say that I'm not keen on returning to empty house second time in a row."

"That sounds worrying, if there is something I can do to help…"

"Please don't worry about me,I just had and argument with the girls so atmosphere at home is not so great right now, that's all. Also, I'm bothering you enough with this whole level grind already."

"This is nothing for the number one mage of the crimson demon clan."

"Actually I never thanked you for what you're doing for me, so allow me to express my gratitude right now. Thank you for everything so far yunyun, I'm glad to be able to call such a dependable person my friend."

Kazuma said while bowing his head.

"It's fine Kazuma-san, it's fine." Yunyun said trying to hide her embarrassment. "It's the least I can do to help a friend in need after all."

Lol, so easy again, Kazuma though. But yunyun was surprisingly helpful to him, imagine if she was in his party all this time, how much more convenient his live would have been. But now it was impossible seeing as she was going to have her hands full becoming the next chief and such.

After that they bid their farewell and agreed to meet early in the morning. Another hard day was waiting for both of them.

* * *

"Megumin what's wrong?" Aqua asked as she saw gloomy looking girl slowly walking down the hall with her pillow in hand.

"He's not there."

"No need to feel down, your explosion is becoming more powerful with each passing day, I'm sure we'll ba able to…"

As if she didn't hear her, Aqua started talking with joyous expression on her face.

"Aqua…"

"Slay the demon king without any problems, so no need to worry about…"

"Kazuma didn't return home, she interrupted her. What if he actually run of to the capital. What if something happened to him. What if he's already…"

She started to break down.

Aqua hugged her. "It's fine Megumin I'm sure he'll be back shortly."

"But Aqua…"

"Shhhh..." aqua wiped a tear off megumin's cheek.  
"He's a scumbag, a pervert and a helpless shit-NEET, but he wouldn't abandon us so easily. He wouldn't hurt us … he wouldn't hurt you."

How can you be so sure about it Aqua?

"It's obvious, Aqua said while smiling. It's because he cares about all of us."

She hugged her tighter.

"And because he loves you."

* * *

**Hello guys, author here. **

**I hope you liked this chapter, it's been on my mind for some time to write this stroy, but my ulterior motive for it won't be reveled anytime soon... **

**Wow, so mysterious. **

**Anyway, as you see I decided to add some new spells and monsters. More of that is coming in the future chapters, so I hope you won't mind. Also more memes and references are coming, so stay tuned for that. **

**Sorry for any grammatical errors, English is not my first language and this is my first time doing something like this. Still, I hope you managed to enjoy that.**


	3. Chapter 3

Change of heart

Chapter 3: Might and Magic.

"Good morning Kazuma-san, did you sleep well?"

"Good morning Yunyun, well bed was fine and all, but I couldn't help but feel that there was something missing."

He knew exactly what was bothering him, but he didn't want to admit it.

Man I hope they didn't run into any trouble while I'm away. Well nothing good will come from worrying so let's just focus on today's plan.

And there was a lot to do. First off they went outside the village and started killing every monster they came across. As they agreed, today they would focus their effort around the crimson demon lands, especially the large forest, as it was filled with stronger and more exp rewarding monsters.

One shot bears, goblins, rookie killers, forest spiders, all fell prey to the merciless duo, as they went deeper into the woods.

After few hours they stopped for a little break.

This is really efficient. I'm already pass level 20, not much more and I can learn advanced magic.

"Yes but I'm afraid that the forest monsters won't be enough. Soon we will have to either start attacking demon king forces or go somewhere else."

"It's not like there is a method to increase exp given by monsters…"

"Actually I heard that killing enemies you really hate will help you level up quicker. Of course there is no reason to believe something that ridiculous." She laughed.

"Enemies I hate, huh?"

Suddenly Kazuma started grinning and it was so menacing, that it sent shivers down Yunyun's spine.

"Hey Yunyun I just remembered something, something that left me with the deep emotional scar. I would like to repay the loathsome creatures that were responsible for that."

"I don't like where this is going."

* * *

"Oh god how can he be so powerful?!"

"Capture him alive, he will give us many strong offspring, at least be sure to leave the important part intact sisters."

Yunyun was witnessing something disturbing.

"My name is Kazuma Satou, and this is my revenge upon you, wretched creatures. Let my anger become the sword to slay those who stand against me, let my hands sully themselves with the blood of my enemies, by the fire of my wrath, let none survive."

Kazuma was screaming curses as he spammed fireballs everywhere and set the orc village ablaze. Orcs were a strong monsters, but they stood no chance against the deranged Kazuma.

One by one becoming a living torches and being cut down by his sword the orcs fell to the ground. Massacre continued until there was no one standing but the mad adventurer.  
With blood and ashes covering his face, he looked terrifying, Yunyun gulped loudly.

I suddenly feel bad for all his future enemies, if he can create such a hell after only learning single spell, I don't want to think what horrors he is going to unleash, once he finishes his plan. And even though fireball was not all that powerful in the first place, he managed to kill the entire orcish village, while not being struck even once. This is what happens once he gets serious, she thought.

"Oi look at this Yunyun, I'm level 16 already." Kazuma said while waving his adventurer's card and slowly walked in her direction. During this whole mess he apparently gained so much levels that he was able to learn advanced magic on the fly and drink the potion to optimize the grind.

Yes, in the middle of everything he just casually took out his card, put the points into advanced magic and then just as casually took a bottle out of his backpack and drank it. After that he went back into his killing spree like nothing happened.

Kazuma-san you are scary, Yunyun though.

* * *

"So just 5 more levels to go and I can learn teleport." Kazuma said while eating a chicken sandwich that he bought earlier this morning in the village.

"Actually Kazuma-san I think that soon enough you won't need my help anymore" Crimson demon girl said, while taking a sip of green tea from the cup.

"To be fair, my fireballs have become much stronger the more I casted them. But there is no way that I can manage without you, Yunyun."

"No, I think you can manage on your own just fine." Yunyun said while laughing nervously, the image of Kazuma mercilessly slaughtering orcs still fresh in her mind.

"Actually we have some manatite left, so let's keep going until we use them all, if possible I would like to learn some powerful offensive spell today."

After the break they once again entered the forest looking for monsters to hunt, but after about an hour of wandering around they didn't find anything.

"That's weird, usually this part of the forest is a breeding ground for all kinds of strong beings."

I think I know a reason for that. That's probably because bomber majin moguninnin has been slain by me and megumin some time ago. It's possible that the monsters migrated to the part of the forest previously occupied by him. But still it was way too empty. Also what's with all those ravens there.

They were everywhere and the way they acted didn't seem normal. Locking their eyes on Kazuma and Yunyun, they were behaving more like a sentry than a normal flock of birds.

"Kazuma-san, something is wrong, I feel something dark coming from this direction." She pointed deeper into the forest.

"If I remember correctly this would be the territory of…"

"Fenrir!" Yunyun shouted

Small correction, it once belong to the giant wolf, whose head was currently impaled on top of a weird construction standing in the forest.

"What?! What the fuck is going on here? Fenrir was dead? But he was a boss level monster, who would be able to do something like that?" Kazuma shouted in shock.

"Kazuma-san look!" Yunyun pointed at a nearby stone. It was cut deep by some kind of claws, Kazuma never saw anything like that before.

Does this mean that new apex predator appeared in the forest and killed Fenrir?

Kazuma walked closer to the severed head.

"This looks like some kind of a totem..."

"Wait a minute, a totem you said... I see it all makes sense now. Kazuma-san no matter what you do, don't come any closer to it!"

Kazuma stopped dead in his tracks.

The marks on the stone, all those ravens and on top of that a totem, this could only mean one thing.

"Kazuma-san it's…"

Just as she started speaking, a branch from a nearby tree fell right onto the totem and destroyed it.

"WHAT?! What did you do Kazuma, I told you to stand back!"

"I didn't do anything, seems like some old branch just fell off on it's own. And why are you so terrified… hold on my enemy detection skill caught something."

"We need to get out of here. NOW." she said as she grabbed his arm.

"Teleport."

They were standing near the entrance of the forest, where Yunyun set a teleport marker before. It turned out it was a good decision.

"What's the big deal huh?" Kazuma was starting to panic as well.

"Kazuma-san give me more manatite. We are going to fight him there."

Fight? But we teleported so far away…

"Hurry up, please. Kazuma never saw Yunyun acting like that." He gave her all 7 stars that were left and also put some into his pocket as well.

"Tell me, why are we getting ready for fight, after we teleported away?"

There was a good reason for this. Fighting this creature inside it's own territory is suicide. Yunyun quickly explained what they were dealing with.

Fuck. It was the only thing Kazuma was able to say after what he had heard.

After a few seconds we heard a powerful roar and a tall menacingly looking humanoid creature emerged from the woods. It looked like a creature straight out of a horror movie. It was a cruel and powerful monster. The new and undisputed king of the forest, Leshen.

"Looks like it's a young invidual, he must have moved here recently. That's probably why he didn't kill us the moment totem was destroyed."

"Light of saber."

Yunyun was not wasting any time. She attacked leshen with her most powerful spell, a yellow plasma edge hit him directly. From what it looked like, he took some damage but it wasn't enough to kill him.

"Ok, looks like he's not totally resistant to magic yet, we can probably kill him, but it won't be easy. Look out!"

Be both jumped to the side as a bunch of roots shoot into our direction.

"Fireball." I casted few fireballs at the monster.

He blocked them with his hand. But my objective was to stop him in place for a moment so that...

"Bottomless swamp."

Yunyun can immobilize him.

Seems like it worked as leashen was unable to move and his roar echoed in the air once again.

"Lighf of saber!"

After that yunyun started casting the spell over and over like crazy. She already burned through 3 of the mana stars I gave her, but the fight was far from over.  
While outside of his territory, leshen is not able to command animals and plants like it normally does, it still has one bothersome trick up his slave.

After yet taking yet another ligh of saber, leshen suddenly vanished in a cloud of smoke.

I grabbed Yunyun and jumped to the side.

In the exact same moment leshen teleported to us and attacked with his massive claws.

I blocked the attack with my sword. Or should I say, tried to, as leshen's claws sliced through my blade. Luckily for me the force of our clash mostly rolled me out of the way of his attack, still I felt the skin on my back being cut pretty deeply.

"Teleport. Bottomless swamp."

Yunyun teleported us a safe distance away and again tried to immobilize the enemy once more. But before the spell fully activated, leshen attacked with the roots again.

"Look out!" Yunyun pushed me out and jumped in the opposite direction, but it wasn't enough.

She wasn't hit directly the strength of the attack send her flying, she slammed into the ground a solid 10 meters away. At the same time the stars I gave her landed near me, currently on all four.

My adventurer card, a bottle of the potion, and the rest of the manatite all fell out from the ripped pocket.

I wasn't injured that much, but it still hurt like hell. I looked up the situation. Yunyun was unconscious and the leshen was slowly sinking into the spell. Seems like the fight was taking its toll on him.  
Still the situation was dire. If I didn't deal with him quickly, he would kill both me and Yunyun next time he teleports. But what could I do? Fireball was too weak, I needed something much more powerful to kill him.

Fuck, think think, I started looking for anything until my eyes landed on my adventurer's card...

But still, I need... I looked at the stars laying around and suddenly something came to my mind.

"Shit! looks like there is no other way" I said as I put 15 points into the one skill I didn't want to get. I drank the potion while at it. Might as well plan for the best.

I gathered all the manatite laying around and jumped to my feet. I hope this will work. The distance seemed about right so I wasted no time.

I concentrated and started chanting.

"Darkness blacker than black and darker than dark..." I said the words that I heard so many times already. When I felt the spell taking form all mana was drawn from my body in an instant, I was close to passing out but I stayed calm. I concentrated on the manatide I held in hands and released energy sealed within them.

Megumin once said that the explosion magic is like a hungry beast that will devour any mana it can find, before taking it's final form and releasing. I though then, that she was just getting onto another one of her delusions, but the experience was close to what she described.

I felt the mana flowing through my entire body as magic circles started appearing above leshen. I poured everything I had into the spell and released it.

"Strike forth, explosion!" I shouted as it went off.

In the instant area around leshen disappeared in the flash of ligh and a large flame erupted a second later.

60 points I thought as I dropped down to my knees and felt the heat on my face. For a first time it was a pretty high score objectively saying.

I couldn't move but at the very least I was still conscious.

"Kazuma-san what in the world happened?" I heard the voice behind my back.

Well Yunyun, seems like I will need a piggyback ride…

* * *

"Here you go." Wiz said as she transferred some mana into the two individuals that were lying on the floor of her shop.

"Finally, I was getting tired of lying around."

"Thank you Wiz-san, you are a lifesaver."

It was no so long ago that the two of them teleported to the shop. Yunyun spend all her mana during the fight so after the teleport she also was unable to move a muscle.

"Wiz, do you mind giving me more mana, I would like to do something."

"Of course Kazuma-san." Wiz said as she used drain touch to replenish all of Kazuma's mana.

"Ok here we go." Kazuma said as took out his adventurer's card and put 20 points into the teleport.

After he killed the leshen, his level skyrocketed and he was finally able to get the spell he was after.

"So tell me how do I mark a place for the future teleports?"

"You just need to concentrate on the place you are standing and cast teleport without anything else in mind. This should be enough to connect you with the marked location and you can come back there anytime using the spell." Wiz explained.

Kazuma did as he was told and it worked just fine. This would mean that he could come to the shop anytime he wanted.

With that dealt with, Kazuma could finally focus on the other big aspect of his plan.

"Vanir Is everything I asked for ready?"

"Yes, moi prepared all that you ordered. It's here." As Vanir said that he put a large box on the ground.

"Sweet now I can finally go to the capital and…" Kazuma started as he reached out with his hand to open the large package.

But before that Vanir grabbed his arm and said menancingly:

"Aren't you forgetting about something, oh dear customer?"

"Oh, sorry about that. Here."

He handed Vanir a cheque for astonishing 1 billion eries. This was the price for two packages of manatite, all of the potions as well as for the content of the box currently laying on the ground. As they agreed earlier, Kazuma would pay for everything today, before the second shipment of manatite arrives.

Doing business with you is a pleasure. Vanir smiled

Kazuma couldn't help but smile as well. True, he just spend almost half of his fortune, but knowing what was inside of the box, it was going to be worth it.

"Sweet, so how long till the second delivery of manatite arrives?"

7 days. This time you will have to wait a little longer as moi has run out of stock.

Kazuma turned to face Yunyun.

"So then, I think we should take break from our trips together, at least until new stars arrive."

"Actually Kazuma-san I'm afraid that I won't be able to continue leveling up with you anymore. I have to get back to the village as I need to tend some important matters regarding the future of our clan.

Well that was to be expected, as she was going to become the next chief, her schedule was probably going to be pretty tight pretty soon.

"But after what I saw today, I believe that you will be fine on your own." Once again, images of orc village appeared in front of her eyes.

Kazuma could probably persuade her into helping him more, but she was right. With his current power level, he was fine on his own, so there was no reason for Yunyun to stick around with him if she really had something important to deal with. It was good enough that she even managed to find time for him in the first place.

"If that's the case, Wiz can I ask you for a second to come with us?"

Three of them teleported to the crimson demon village. As soon as they arrived Kazuma set another marker for himself.

"Once again thank you for everything Yunyun, I hope we'll meet again soon."

All and all, he was really grateful for what Yunyun did for his sake. He wasn't expecting her to play her role that well. He promised himself, that one day he would pay her back for that.

After they said their goodbyes, wiz teleported Kazuma back to the shop.

"Are you ready Kazuma-san?"

"I have everything I need with me. Let's go."

Wiz casted the teleport and soon enough they arrived in the royal capital.

"Sorry Wiz, but can we split out for a bit? I need to take care of something first."

"Ok, then I will take this and meet with you at the place." As she said that Wiz lifted the box from the ground.

"Thank you wiz, It won't take long, I promise."

After that they both went opposite directions with Wiz taking a route to the main square and Kazuma going straight for the imperial palace.

After a short while he arrived at the main gate.

"So should I just teleport inside or break in the usual way?"

Seems like someone heard what he said, as blonde beauty approached him from behind.

"What the hell are you doing in capital, Kazuma?"

Turns out his luck was pretty high today as the person he was looking for walked closer to him.

"I heard what you said earlier about breaking in. If you think you can play your dirty tricks on Iris again, then I will arrest you where you stand."

"Long time no see Claire. Actually I have a ask you a favor."

"Huh, what is it?"

"I want you to deliver this letter to Iris."

"I knew it." Claire said while putting a hand on her sword.

"I only want her to read this letter. For all I care, you can open it and see for yourself that it's nothing ill intentioned. But then you would have to tell Iris why the seal was broken."

"Your words won't scare me, Kazuma." She said while pulling the letter out of my hand and hastily opening it.

As she was reading it, her expression turned from shock, to disbelief.

"What is the meaning of this."

"It's exactly as I've written."

Are you for real? I always taken you for a lazy bastard, but…

"I don't really care wheter you believe me or not, but what the letter states is true. So, will you take it to Iris or…"

"I will give this to princess but I still don't trust you."

"Guess it can't be helped. Just so you don't throw out the letter the second I leave, see for yourself."

After that I showed her my adventurer's card. And this time she was so shocked that her face turned pale.

"So it was true. I apologize for what I said before, Kazuma."

"It's fine, as long as the letter reaches Iris. Well, I'll be off, see you soon Cecily."

After that, Kazuma left, leaving astonished Cecily behind.

* * *

Sometime later he finally reached the place where he was supposed to meet with Wiz.

Prometheus. Seems like it's the right name. Kazuma thought while opening the door.

Inside the shop Wiz and an enormous, black skinned man were having a friendly conversation.

"Oh Kazuma-san, great timing, this is the man I wanted you to meet. His name is He'stan."

He'stan, an old friend of Wiz, the man who is best blacksmith in this kingdom and probably one of the best in the whole world. If anyone could forge what Kazuma wanted, it was this man.

"Nice to meet you, I'm…"

"So this little boy is the adventurer you kept telling me about, Wiz?"

Kazuma was interrupted by the giant.

"And if I'm right isn't the one named Kazuma, supposed to be this good for nothing scumbag, everyone was talking about for a while now?"

Kazuma was not pleased with this treatment. He walked closer until he was just a step away from He'stan.

"Hey listen there, you…"

"Hahahha, sorry for that, boy."

"Huh?"

"I just wanted to mess with you to see what kind of a man you are. I really don't care what people say about others. Seeing you ready to punch me, more than twice your size, tells enough about your character."

Well, I would never get into a brawl with someone this big. I was going to drain touch him for a little, until he apologizes, but seems like there was no need to make a scene.

"Ok then, so what would you like from me, Kazuma?"

"Allow me to ask you something first. Can you create magic items? How good of an artificer are you?"

"Hahaha, I wouldn't be called a forgefather, if I wasn't able to create a staff or a wand, don't underestimate me you brat." He said without a trace of a grudge.

"Good to hear, because I want you to make me something special." As I said that Wiz opened the box and finally revealed what was inside.

He'stan smiled when he saw what we brought with us.

"Deldrimor steel, that's some rare stuff right there, but wait, what's that, manatite ore?" Suddenly he realized. "Oi, boy you can't possibly…"

"Yes, I want you to make me a weapon that combines the properties of both the world strongest metal and manatite. He'stan I ask you, create me a real magic sword."

"This is wonderful, simply wonderful, now I see why Wiz was talking so highly about you, young adventurer."

A magic sword. But not just some "cut through everything" bullshit like the sword of that asshole, whatever was his name. What Kazuma wanted could be simply described as a combination of a white arm and a magical wand.

In most fantasy settings wizards and such were always using things like scepters, rods and most common of all, staffs. It was connected to the fact through various suspension of disbelief shenanigans, while were supposed to help with the magical abilities of their user, be it by decreasing the cost of the spells or by making them more powerful, for some reason, they had to be made into a form that was useless in close combat. Sure you could bash someone with a wooden staff, but it would do little to no damage to the armored opponent. That was just how it went with fantasy most of the times and people just got used to that.

But things were a little different in this world. Here everything depended on the use of one particular material – manatite. It was a special metal, that, because of its magical properties, helped with the flow of mana thus making spells easier to control. A talented person could also fill the manatite with mana thus creating manatite crystals, that could be used to instantly replenish the mana of the one using them.

"Think you can do this?"

"I've never created a sword like that, but I won't run off from the challenge. Leave the materials here, in 2 days it will be ready."

"Good, but before you do anything, allow me to ask, is there any way to make it even more powerful as a weapon?"

As Kazuma already paid and enormous price for all the material, he wanted to get the most out of it.

"Deldrimor steel is almost unbreakable, it's top notch, you won't be able to get anything better than that. On the other hand, in theory, you could fill the manatite with magical energy as the weapon is forged.  
That would make it so the manatite would become a catalyst of some sort. You would require much less mana to cast a spell than with just an empty manatite used in most of magical equipment. But this energy would be slowly spend with each spell casted and after a while it would just be a normal manatite again. After that it won't be possible to fill it again.  
Well if you were to merge it with something like tears of a goddess it's another story."

"I see so this is really is the best I can hope for, wait, what did you just say…"

"Don't mind it, it's just something I heard a long time ago. It's said that using divine related things you could create a catalyst that never runs out of magical energy, the one that lasts forever. But don't sweat over it, it's not like you could find something like that in the first place." He'stan laughed loudly.

Kazuma was smiling menacingly just like before when he thought about exterminating the orcs.

"Tears of a goddess? Oh I will get you more than enough He'stan."

"Oi boy, don't joke about something like that..."

"If I manage to get those tears, how much will this impact the weapon?"

"Boy, if you somehow do this I will forge you the greatest magical sword this world has ever seen."

"World's greatest doesn't sound cheap."

"If you manage to bring me the tears I will not charge you a single coin." He'stan smiled as he reached a hand to me.

"Seems like we have a deal old man." I said as I shook his hand.

Now I just need to make Aqua cry a lot. I smiled, this is something I'm more then experienced enough with. Oh right...

"Also there is something else I want you to make me." Kazuma said as he took out two manatite orbs from the box…

* * *

Kazuma was standing in front of his mansion.

For some reason it feels like I've haven't been here for a while now , I hope that Aqua is inside, and Megumin is not.

He couldn't help but but blush in embarrassment when he remembered his second request to He'stan.

If Megumin is home I won't be able to look her in the eyes, he thought.

He made a teleport marker at the front door and went inside.

Seems like luck was on his side again. Aqua was drinking tea while laying on the couch near the fire place and megumin was nowhere to be seen.

As soon as Aqua noticed him, she said coldly:

"Coming back, and begging for forgiveness, you Shit-Neet?"

"Hi Aqua, where is Megumin?"

"Sleeping in her room, she needed rest after giving her all practicing explosion today. She've been trying very hard to improve it, not like some good for nothing bastard I know."

If you only knew, Kazuma thought.

"Well then, I have a favor to ask" He said while putting a bottle of top quality wine he bought in the capital and an empty vial on the table.

Aqua's looked at him disgusted.

"If you think you can get me drunk and then go and do something to defensless megumin, then I will…"

"Who do you take me for, you useless goddess! I just want you to cry some tears into this empty glass."

"Is that your new fetish, you pervert?"

"I really want to punch you right now. Seems like there is no other way. If you do what I ask, I'll increase your allowance next month by a million eris…"

As fast as he finished talking aqua grabbed the flask and started crying like baby, careful not to let a single tear spill. Soon enough the bottle was full.

"Crying on the spot, you really poses many useless talents don't you?"

"It's only to be expected of such a gifted goddess as myself. Now be gone, I don't want to think what kind of despicable acts you are going to do with that vial. But let me warn you, if you don't want the divine retribution to fall upon you, then you better not put this into your…"

"To think of it, I also could use some mana right now. Come here for a moment Aqua." Kazuma said while smiling innocently.

"Kazuma-san I'm sorry please don't…"

* * *

After he dealt with Aqua he went upstairs to his room and made another teleport marker.

Darkness seemed to still be away, I wonder what is she up to?

"Well seems like it's time to go, I have no more things to do here."

He said that, but he was still standing still in his room.

…

"Fuck this shit."

"Lurk."

After he activated his skill, he went out of his room, into a hall and wandered silently to Megumin's room.

Damn it, it surely looks creepy, he thought while opening the door.

Inside megumin was sleeping soundly. Kazuma wondered if he should wake her up, but he didn't have the hearth to do it.

Instead he just came closer to her and whispered to her ear.

"I'm sorry Megumin, I'll come home soon, so please wait for me."

After that he planted a small kiss on her cheek and mumbled.

"I love you."

Wow, this is some normie shit right here, good thing she is asleep or else I would be in trouble...

"Kazuma?" Megumin said quietly. She slowly began to open her eyes.

Oh shit I woke her up. Time to get the fuck out. Teleport.

After he vanished, megumin looked at the room.

No one is here, I guess this was just a dream after all.

She went back to sleep, for some reason she felt more at ease than before.

* * *

Next morning, after spending the night in the inn, Kazuma was walking down the streets of Axel.

Damn it, what is wrong with me? First this ridiculous request to He'stan, now this whole romantic kiss scene, am I really becoming a shitty isekai protagonist, or what?

Well for now he had more important things to do, than being flustered about his actions.  
He was slowly running out of cash. This whole thing started to put a little too much pressure on his pocket.

"If this continues like that, I will find myself in debt soon enough." He said while entering the adventurer's guild.

"Oh Kazuma-san please come here." The blonde haired woman was waving to him.

"What's the matter Luna-san?"

"Adventurer's guild prepared a special reward for you, for getting rid of all monsters around Axel."

"Oh that sounds great."

"Please, show me your adventurer's card and wait a bit."

He handed it to her.

"What?!" She looked shocked when she gazed upon it, and quickly run off behind the counter.

She returned a few minutes later, carrying some sheets of paper with her. There was something that looked to be a cheque among them.

"What's the matter with that, Luna-san?"

"Well the reward is a little too big to be payed in cash, so please accept this. And here's your card."

"How much is this additional reward exactly?"

"50 million earies."

"That doesn't sound all that great to me."

"Well to be fair, the quest you completed combined with the additional reward come down to a little over 100 million eries, but there is something else. It's about this monster you killed recently."

There could only be one thing.

"You mean the leshen, right?"

"Yes, It looks like someone put quite a reward for getting rid of him. She showed him the poster, with a drawing resembling leshen."

It was very close to the original but what cough kazuma'a attention was the number beneath.

"800 million earies?! Who could have put such a high a reward on it?"

"I don't know, but this quest appeared in all the guild hall all over the kingdom. Seems like whoever did this really wanted to get rid of him quickly."

After signing some documents and congratulations from luna, Kazuma found himself outside of the guild.

Suerly something seemed weird about leshen, but who in the world would put such a high of reward on him?

"Assistant-kun."

"Oh, long time no see Chris, or should I rather say, Eris."

"Please keep your voice down, and come with me, we need to talk."

"Sure, I don't mind."

We entered one of the alleyway, where no one could hear us.

"So let me say this, congratulations on taking down the leshen."

"Wait so the one who put this quest... was you?"

"Yes, this monster was not from this world, it had no right to be here, if we let him be, he would have done a great deal of damage to the ecosystem, as a goddess I couldn't let this happen".

"I see, that's why he felt so out of place, but wait, if this monster was from some other world, then why Yunyun knew about him."

"Crimson demon have a special bestiary written long time ago, that describes various monsters, that are not from this world. All their children are taught about them in school for some reason."

"It's probably so that they could brag about being a slayer of one of a kind being. Titles are very important to them so it's only to be expected. I can also guess who was the author of this book..."

"Still, I was surprised when I saw how you've dealt with him. Have you finally chosen to become the proper hero, Kazuma-san?"

"Who knows?" I chuckled.

"Anyway, I owe you that one, if there is anything I can do to help you…"

Suddenly a thought came to my mind.

"Oh, actually there is one thing that you could do."

"I took out another empty vial. If it's possible I would like to ask you to give me some of your tears, you probably know what I need them for."

Chris nodded.

"So If you could..."

"I'm afraid that I can't help you with that."

"I won't force you to do this if you don't want to."

"No you don't understand. Give me a second. Stay here."

After that chris disappeared and about a minute later a real goddess Eris was standing before Kazuma.

"It's true that the tears of a goddess have some magical properties, but it's not the same in all cases."

"What do you mean?"

"Aqua-senpai is a goddess of water, so her tears will do. But in my case they are just a regural water and they won't help you in any way. But there is something other I can give you. Please hold the flask this way."

As she said that, she took out an enchanted dagger that Chris always carries and cut her hand, pretty deeply.

"Ouch" she said as the blood started running down the wound and into the glass.

"Are you okay, you don't have to push yourself that hard for me.'

"Don't mind it, it's nothing for me. It will heal in no time."

This is why Aqua can never compare to Eris, she would have never done something like that for him. This is the real goddess for you, Kazuma thought.

After some time vial was full with the red liquid.

"Now then if you excuse me Kazuma-san I have something to do in heaven to ensure that no other monster is wrongly put in this world again. Eris said as the wound on her hand already started to heal."

"I can't thank you enough Eris, this is really going to help me. I hope we can meet again soon. It's time to go to the royal capital."

"Teleport."

"I really hope you can save this world Kazuma-san." Eris said after he disappeared.

* * *

"You sure don't waste any time Claire."

After Kazuma gave two vials containing Aqua's tears and Eiris's blood to the he'stan he found blue eyed girl waiting for him outside of Prometheus.

"Iris-sama wants you to starts with the training as fast as possible. That is if you really mean it."

In his letter to Iris, Kazuma described what has happened during the last few days, and asked her if she could find him someone who would show him non magical skills. Seems like Iris was more than willing to help as Claire was walking with him to the training grounds.

There, three people were waiting for him.

"So allow me to introduce you to these three gentlemen."

"First the royal assassin, Hassan"

"Royal you said, I was living in a palace for some time, but I've never seen you before."

"Thank you for the compliment Kazuma-dono."

"It's now what I meant, but whatever."

"Next up is the royal ranger and the best archer in the kingdom, Pyre Fierceshot."

"Oh great, another adventurer, seems like this will be a handful."

The reason that he was saying that, was because the third person…

"So we meet again, Kazuma Satou!"

Was this bothersome asshole who Kazuma couldn't help but hate, Mitsurugi Kyouya.

"Ok Claire, I'm fine with those two, but why did you bring mikakuzuki as well?"

"It's Mitsurugi, and don't think you can get away from me this time Kazuma."

"Mitsurugi-dono is one of the best swordmasters in this world, he's the best teacher you can find in the capital."

"It's true that princess herself asked me to help train some promising adventurer, but I never though she would mean you. Also why would you want to train in the first place. Aren't you an adventurer, who would require an immense amount of points to learn techniques form other classes, what do you plan to accomplish, Kazuma?"

"Well, maybe I should tell you all about my plans for the future."

"Yes if you do that, then maybe I'd be willing to help you…"

"DAGA KOTOWARU (I refuse) I have no reason to reveal my cards to some cheating idiot. I doubt you have anything worthy to show me anyway. I could defeat you as I am right now, so just get lost already asshole."

Mitsurugi was visibly angry.

"Then, what about a little challenge? If you manage to take me down, I will show you my ultimate technique."

"Sure, why not, oi, can someone lend me a weapon for a second? Some club or hammer would be perfect."

"You can take this." Claire gave him a small mace.

They walked some distance away. Kazuma was leading and kyouya followed him few steps behind.

Once Mitsurugi walked to one particullar spot...

"I think this would be enough, Mikakuzuki."

"You said my name wrongly on purpose this time, Kazuma!"

I got you right where I want you, you idiot.

Ok then, ready when you are, Kazuma said while not looking at Kyouya.

Mitsurugi took out his magical sword.

"I underestimated you last time we fought, but now I won't let my guard down and after I beat you to a pulp and have you beg for forgiveness…"

"Teleport."

Kazuma teleported behind Mitsurugi and struck him right in the head with a mace. His opponent was a high level adventuter but no matter how tough you are, after a hit like that will take you down.

And just like that, Kazuma won his second fight against Mitsurugi.

"Perfectly executed, Kazuma-dono."

"Yeah, nicely done, I like you Kazuma."

Claire splashed a bucket of water on mitsurugi's face to wake him out.

"What, what just happened?!"

"I took you down, as I said I would."

"Teleport?! But how... I see you left a marker as we were walking, you cheated, I demand a remach!"

"Kazuma won, that's all there is to it. Now Mitsurugi-dono, I'm looking forward to seeing your ultimate attack."

"I refuse to have anything more to do with this scumbag…"

"So would you like the princess to know, that not only did you start a fight with Kazuma, who is a great friend of Iris-sama, but you also broke your promise you've made before a duel. I don't think she would be pleased with this outcome."

Mitsurugi gulped loudly.

"Well, it seems like I have no choice. I will teach you all that I know, Kazuma."

"Ok then, let's start already."

* * *

Soon enough Kazuma had almost a 100 new skills ready to learn. To get all of them would require a massive amount of skill points. Additionally there were also many more spells he wanted to get.

Seems like there still is a long way to go. Now then, the next big step is probably learning light of saber, but on the other hand I'm still not satisfied with my mana capacity. Seems like I will have to learn some miscellaneous cheap skills first, to give me more mana with equilibrium.

"And now gaze upon this, my ultimate technique!"

Oh right, this idiot has yet to show my this whole certain kill move or whatever would you call it. Well I doubt it will be that good, so I might as well start putting points in some assassin techniques.

Unrelenting assault. As Mitsurugi said the name he jumped into the air as to attack something, but the training dummy they used for practice was a solid 10 meters away from him.

Well the name is pretty neat but what he is way too far from his target … wait what the fuck is happening?

Before Kyouya touched the ground, he vanished, only to suddenly appear behind his target and strike it.  
But it didn't quite end there. After his first attack connected, kyouya vanished again and just like the last time he attacked from other direction. Then he vanished again, and again, and gain. A total of 10 blows were dealt that way, each seemed to be stronger and more fierce than the last. After that he teleported one last time to deal a devastating overhead blow, so strong that it created a small crater afterwards.

After that, he disappeared for a final time, only to appear at the place he jumped in the air a few seconds before.

Kazuma's was astonished by the attack. He Immediately looked for the name on his adventurer's card. 15 points, damn, it looks powerful but was it really worth it?

"So how was it, Kazuma?"

"You may be an asshole, but this technique looks neat. Still if someone were to put some kind of Aoe around him, you would be in deep shit."

"Actually this is not a problem at all."

"What are you getting at?"

"During the attack you are untargetable, doesn't matter if it's magic, arrows or sword, nothing can damage you."

Kazuma couldn't believe his ears. If that was the case, then we have some serious balance issues in this world.

"You are messing with me, aren't you?"

"I'm telling the truth.'

"Then why don't we test this ability a bit? Attack the dummy again, but this time I will constantly shoot fireballs at you."

"Fine by me. You ready, Kazuma?"

"Go ahead, kyouya."

Hey you actually said my name right.

'Attack the dummy already."

L"et's do this then. Unrelenting assault."

Once again kyouya attacked the dummy. During the whole time Kazuma was shooting fireballs at him, but they seemed to just pass tight through him, without doing anything.

"Do you believe me now?"

I'll have to change my priorities a bit.

* * *

Kazuma was walking down the streets of the capital.

After asking Mitsurugi everything about this unbelievable skill, kyouya actually gave Kazuma another great idea, he tested it already and it looked promising, he just needed his new sword until he could really start using it.

So let's sum it all up. My next two big objectives are getting light of saber and unrelenting assault. Also I should learn some cheap skills to boost my mana as well as some lower level spells to boost my stamina. With that I could use both techniques more frequently in combat.  
2 more days till my new sword is made and 6 more till a new shipment of manatite arrives. I would like to use this time to increase my level some more but going alone without an emergency reserve of manatite is way too dangerous.

Maybe I should really hire some mercenaries to go with me or ask Iris for help. Damn it, if only there was someone to at least tank the enemies for me…

"Kazuma, what the hell are you doing here?!"

And just like that he came across the perfect candidate.

"Hello darkness, It's been a while since I've seen you."

"I can't believe this, you actually came to the capital, does this mean you really decided to abandon us?"

"Not quite. I've came here for few reasons, but running away is not one of them.'

"What do you mean by that?"

"Look at this."

With that he gave her his adventurer's card.

It feels like I've been showing it to a lot of people recently, well it's only natural as otherwise no one would believe me.

"What?! What's the meaning of this."

I'm starting to get used to this kind of reaction.

"Level 21?! Weren't you supposed to be reduced down to 1?"

"Yup that's what happened 3 days ago in the mansion but a lot of things went by since then."

"Intermediate magic?! Maxed out fireball?! What there is even advanced magic and teleport?! Kazuma what is going on here?"

"I will explain everything, but first I would like you to do something…"

* * *

The door to the mansion flung open and blonde haired beauty made her way inside.

"Aqua, Megumin are you here?"

"Darkness is that you? We are in the living room. You came just in time for a dinner. Aqua responded."

"Oh Darkness what's the matter… hey are you okay?"

Darkness was standing before them, her face had weird look of mixed anger and excitement.

"I've met Kazuma in the capital."

Megumin dropped the spoon she was holding in her hand.

Aqua punched the table with both her hands and stood up.

"Are you serious?!" They both said in the same moment.

Darkness nodded.

"I can't believe this, he actually abandoned me, a goddess." Aqua cried.

"Well, first off…" Darkness started quietly.

Megumin didn't say anything, instead she just stood up, grabbed her staff and walked in the direction of the door.

"Megumin, what are you doing?" Darkness looked distressed.

"I'm going to the capital, I'll bring this idiot back, even if I have to blow the entire city up in the process."

"Wait, it's not like that, oi Megumin I told you to stop." Darkness grabbed her by the shoulder.

Megumin turned around, her eyes were glowing.

"What do you mean by not like that? You know something, don't you?"

She shook Lalantina's hand off her shoulder and pointed her staff at her.

"Megumin put this damned thing down! What are you going to do, blow up the entire mansion?" Aqua intervened.  
"And Darkness seems like you have some explaining to do."

"That's what I've been trying to do this entire time, you just wouldn't listen."

After they calmed down a little, they sit down around the table and darkness explained what has happened when she met Kazuma in the capital.

"So he told you something about not being able to return to Axel for at least a few more days but he didn't give you any reason for that? I'd say that he has definitely run away."

"Wait I second Aqua, I thing I know what darkness is getting at."

"Eee, what?"

"Didn't something like that happen recently? During the time when Serena was starting to gain popularity in Axel, Kazuma wanted us to stay away from her for a reason. If we didn't listen to him, who knows how it would have turned out in the end."

"You're right Megumin, that's exactly what I thought too."

"But on the other hand if this is just an excuse so he can hide in the castle…"

"I'll take care of that. I was actually on my way to meet with Claire when I stumbled across Kazuma. If he tries anything like that then I will drag him here myself. Talking about that I need to get back to the capital, please don't do anything rash, until I return."

* * *

After darkness walked some distance from the mansion, she stopped and said:

"So what do you think?"

"It wasn't perfect, but seems like they bought it. I actually panicked a little when Megumin wanted to leave." Kazuma revealed himself from the Lurk.

"Good think you stopped her or else she would have walked right into me."

"Are you really sure about that Kazuma, don't you want to bring them with us?"

"No, I can manage with you, but Magumin and Aqua would be too much, it's better to leave them be at least until I get my new sword."

"So you are really serious about that?"

"Yes, tomorrow we are going to farm exp together."

* * *

**So that concludes the events of this chapter, this is the longest one so far, almost 8.5 k words, holy shit. **

**Darkness finaly makes her apperance, and the next chapter is going to focus more about her. **

**See you in the next part. **


	4. Chapter 4

Change of heart

Chapter 4: Choices.

After teleporting Darkness to the capital, Kazuma wondered where should he spend the night.

I have already grabbed the potions from the shop, so there is no reason to stay in Axel. Seems like there is only one place worth considering right now.

"Teleport."

"Greeting Kazuma Satou, wielder of advanced magic and slayer of Leshen."

As soon as Kazuma appeared in a village he was greeted by the village chief, surrounded by quite a few other crimson demon, Yunyun was also present in the crowd.

"Thank you for the title, but all I did was deal the final blow. If it wasn't for Yunyun we would never take leshen down, so she should be given the honor."

"No Kazuma-san, You were the one who killed him with the explosion while I was unconscious, if you didn't act fast, he would have killed me for sure."

"Not only did you take down this dangerous creature but also saved the life of my dear daughter. Kazuma-san I can't think of a way to thank you for this."

Please stop, it's embarrassing, but on the other hand…

"Actually there is something you can do for me. Tomorrow morning I'll be going out with my friend to kill some monsters. If possible I would like a few experienced mages to show me some useful spells that I can learn…"

Before he finished talking, all the crimson demon around them scattered. Some teleported away while most run off to their homes.

Shouts like: I have to prepare for tomorrow and I'll let everyone know echoed through the entire village.

Ooops, seems like I underestimated crimsons demon's readiness to show off.

"I see it won't be a problem, then if you excuse me, I will go to the inn and…"

"Actually Kazuma-san there is one more thing, Megumin's mother Yuiyui-san asked me to tell you visit them next time you arrive in the village."

Oh crap, she probably heard that I've been coming to the village without Megumin recently. I already know where this is going.

"So now I have to go see you again soon, Kazuma-san."

"Oi, don't leave me alone with it, Yunyun please wait!"

* * *

"Oh Kazuma-san how nice of you to drop by, please come inside."

Kazuma was greeted by Megumin's mother, who was standing outside of the house. Hyoizaburoo-san was nowhere to be seem Kazuma didn't even have to wonder what happened to him.

After they sit down in the living room, Yuiyiu started:

"Let me just skip the smalltalk and ask you straight on, why do I hear the stories about you spending so much time recently with Yunyun, while my daughter is nowhere to be seen?"

Oh crap, I didn't take that into account. I thought that she was only going to ask me about situation between me and Megumin, but somehow Yunyun also got involved.

"Just so there are no misunderstandings, there is nothing going on between Yunyun and me. I just needed her to help me with something. And it's for the best that I didn't bring Megumin with me, no actually no matter what I can't afford her to learn about it for the time being…"

"What do you mean by that?" YuiYui eyes started glowing

Fuck Fuck Fuck while trying to clear a misunderstanding I actually created an even bigger one.

"Wait it didn't sound right, that's not what I mean..."

"Learn about it for the time being? Oi, Kazuma-san you wouldn't possibly…"

"I'll just explain everything."

Kazuma briefly described what happened during the last few days.

"So you had an argument?"

"Yes, that's part of the reason why Megumin is not with me right now. Although it's more about keeping her away from leveling up with me. I've decided that for the sake of us both, I'll only tell her after I'm confident in my strength."

"I didn't take you for such a white knight Kazuma-san."

"Well I just don't want her to blow the explosion in my face while I'm not able to teleport away, but on the other hand I also want to ensure that I can protect Megumin if something goes wrong."

Yuiyui took a moment to thing what I said through and then she said:

"So this leaves me to believe, that I will have to wait a little longer for my grandkids, right Kazuma-san?"

Huh? This woman saying a line like that out of the blue.

"If you don't know how it's done, then I can describe it for you…"

"Thank you very much, but I think I'll be fine on my own!" Kazuma shouted with his face red as a tomato.

"I was just joking. Ok then, seems like there is nothing to worry for now. It's gotten late, and you are probably tired, would you like to stay overnight Kazuma-san?"

"Now that you mention it, I actually feel a little sleepy, oi it's not your doing, right Yuiyui-san?"

"Who knows?" she replied smiling.

And like so, Kazuma ended up staying in Megumin's house.

* * *

Early in the morning he teleported to the capital to meet with Darkness. While there, Kazuma also got himself a new weapon, as chunchunmaru was destroyed in a fight with leshen. He chose a regular ona handed sword, not going for anything extraordinary.

After that they both teleported to the crimson demon village, only to see a large group of people when they appeared.

"Oh Kazuma-san we've been waiting for you, a lot of people wanted to participate so it's for the best that we start right off."

"Kazuma what is going on here?"

"Something that seems to have backfired a little."

* * *

"Shit, I thought they would never stop."

Kazuma and Darkness were walking through the forest around the village.

Saying that crimson demons like to show off, would be an understatement. After being given an opportunity like that they kept on casting spells one after another until they ran out of mana.

Good think is that now I have many potential pics to choose from. Some of the spells looked very promising, but as they were mostly advanced magic ones, they would have to wait a little bit. So it would seem like the priority is still light of saber and unrelenting assault.

"Well you brought this upon yourself, asking them such a ridiculous thing. Also, since when are you called this whole "leshen slayer" or something?"

"Since I killed the bastard with explosion yesterday. Actually let's change our route a little, I would like to minimize the chances of running up into more of its kind."

"For the crimson demons to react that way, seems like it must have been a tough opponent."

"It's classified as a lethal threat in one of their books. As they mature leshens become completely resistant to magic. Combine that with his ability to teleport, sharp claws and incredible strenght and it becomes one of the worst monsters to fight for the crimson demons, that's why this title is so impressive to them. The one we fought was a very young individual, but even after taking multiple lights of saber from Yunyun it still had enough strength to nearly kill us both."

"Yet you managed to defeat it."

"Yet I managed to defeat it and was nearly sucked up dry by the explosion. That's why I don't want to mess with something like that in the future."

Well to be fair, Eris probably already ensured that no more of them would come to this world by mistake ever again, but still, better safe than sorry.

"Actually we are yet to encounter anything moderately strong, and we ventured so deep into the forest already."

"I knew this would happen, Kazuma sighed. "Seems like after we killed so many monsters with Yunyun earlier and leshen took over a large part of the forest, there's nothing left here. We'll need to go even further forward but that would mean… Hold on I got something up ahead."

"Please somebody help me!"

Suddenly a loud cry echoed through the forest

"I'll go first."

"I'm right behind you. Watch out, it could be a trap. There let's walk through this tall bushes."

They walked to the side and Darkness looked behind the leaves. She started to shiver a little.

"Kazumaaa, seems like there is nothing worthy of attention here. Let's turn back, what if this something you detected earlier is… I know it must be one of those horrible leshens."

"You are a terrible actress Darkness."

"Hey don't laught at me, what if it knows that we are here and is getting ready to attack at any moment?"

"It's a tranquility girl."

"N-No what would give you such an idea"…

Kazuma looked over her shoulder, not one but 5 tranquility girls were present below a large oak tree.

B"ut, they are so deep in a forest, there is no chance that somebody would wander off so far from the village and… "

She didn't even have a chance to finish the sentence as Kazuma rushed forward with his sword.

* * *

"You really are merciless Kazuma."

"Seems like you still have not learned that tranquility girls are not a benevolent and harmless creatures but rather a cunning and dangerous monsters. That reminds me, I should probably take care of the one planted in Megumin's garden."

"Kazuma!"

'I'll just tell Komekko that she tastes pretty good."

"Please don't do this."

Anyway what should I do now? He looked at his adventurer's card. 16 points available, with only 4 more I could get light of saber but with my current mana level… He put 15 points into unrelenting assault. Even if I spend all my stamina during the fight, I can always teleport away, but once my mana runs out, we are screwed, It's better to do this for now. He drank the potion.

"Let's continue."

Darkness was still angry at him, but she moved to lead the way.

As they were approaching closer to the demon king's lands, more monsters started appearing again. Kazuma was still not confident enough to engage them in melee, so he just killed everything with fireballs while darkness was taking the agroo.

Because his mana was still not in a great spot, they were forced to frequently take breaks so that he would always have enough for the emergency teleport.

Still, with how much experience all those monsters gave, before evening he was able to learn light of saber.

"Seems like we are getting into another low populated area. I wanted to do a little more today, but let's not push our luck too much."

"Ok this will do for now. Let's get back to the village…"

Suddenly a large shadow flew over their heads and a creature with a lion's body and human head landed heavy on the ground.  
Manticore. Great, this day just couldn't go by without running into something dangerous, right?

"Kazuma, what are we going to do?"

"Trespassing over my territory?! I'll skin you alive maggots!"

"Your territory? Ah I see, there are no griffins in those woods, so that's why you can talk that way. I'm sure if one was to appear, you wouldn't be able to spew such nonsense."

Manticore roared.

"Kazuma why are you provoking it?! Don't tell me you want to fight it?!"

"Well I have more than enough mana for the teleport and I've still yet to try my new skills. Seems like this will be a great learning experience."

"Where is your usual cowardness? This is a Manticore we are talking about. One wrong move and you are dead."

"I'm not stupid enough to not be afraid. Look out here it comes."

Manticore, blinded with rage charged forward but Darkness was able to stop it.

Before it was able to swing it's venomous tail at the girl, Kazuma attacked from behind her and gouged one of it's eyes off with his sword.

The sudden attack surprised the monster as it retreated few meters backwards.

"Now. Unrelenting assault."

Kazuma disappeared for a moment and lashed out from behind the creature, striking at the back of it's head with a thrust of his sword. The attack did little to no damage and mythical beast struck at the Kazuma with it's tail.

"Kazuma, look out." Darkness was terrified, which was totally justified as she didn't know about the skill.

Manticore's sting pierced through Kazuma. Or it's better to say, it went right through him without any resistance, as did the rest of it's tail. With that it was thrown off balance and an opportunity appeared.

Kazuma vanished again and this time struck from the front, slashing at the remaining eye of the creature.

"What is going on here?"

After being blinded, the monster took off, trying to escape from the assault, but Kazuma wouldn't let it. This time he attacked it's bat-like wings and sliced the membrane between the bones. Still, his attack lacked force so it took another attempt to ground the beast. He wasted no time, as he again attacked from the front at the face of the creature with a vertical slash.

The blood shot forth, but the wound was way too shallow to do some serious damage. Finally he thrusted from below its head. Aiming at the throat, the blade was sure to deal the finishing blow, but again it didn't went deep enough to kill.

After that Kazuma reappeared at the place he casted the skill from.

"6 strikes. This bastard kyouya was able to keep attacking for longer when he used it, seems like this is my limit for now."

Kazuma was panting heavily, the skill required an enormous amount of endurance to upkeep.

Shit I was able to land some good hits, but I can't deal the decisive blow. I need more power.

"Kazuma are you okay? And what the hell was that?!"

"Not now, I need to think."

Manticore is blinded and unable to fly. I could probably finish it off with explosion, but if I use it with my current mana I'll die from the exhaustion.

The monster, blinded and confused, was shashing around with its tail like mad.

If one of this strikes lands on either me or darkness, this could be devastating. The fireball won't do, it's skin is too thick, I'll run out of mana before I kill it. And I can't keep on attacking it's face because sooner or later one of those swipes is gonna land and rip me in half. Shit this is so frustrating but retreat seems like the only option. Unless…

There was one more thing he could do, but if he does It, he wouldn't be able to use the teleport afterwards. And he never actually tested it, he wanted to give it a go once he gets his new sword, but he made the decision.

"Fuck it, I refuse to play it safe, darkness stand before me, I need to focus."

"Got it." Darkness put herself between the rampaging monster and Kazuma, who started casting something.

Kazuma concentrated all of his mana on the only thing he could rely on right on – light of saber. But rather than using it like all the people before him did, Kazuma focused the spell on his sword. The reason for that was simple, if he just casted light of saber and missed or didn't manage to kill the monster, he and darkness would be in a dire situation. Enchanting the blade with the spell gave him much more control over it, so it was the only option now. He was barely able to hold it, as the plasma started melting the edge of his sword, but it worked.

I hope this is enough. With his sword covered by light of saber Kazuma jumped forward.

"Unrelenting assault."

The first hit cut off the monster's tail. Even if he failed to kill manticore, without it's main weapon it wouldn't pose that much of a threat, so getting rid of it was the top priority. Enchanted with advanced magic, the blade easily went through the hardened scales.

Second he once again thrusted at the back of it's head. This time around the tip of his sword easily penetrated the skull. Monster roared in pain as the fountain of blood sprang forth.

"Shit, I'm at my limit, it's now or never."

Appearing from the side, he want for the overhead finishing blow. He swung the sword with all of his remaining strength, cutting off the head of the beast.

After having it's head separated from the rest of the body manticore collapsed on the ground, as did Kazuma after returning.

"Kazuma, KAZUMA!" He could hear Darkness screaming his name, before he lost his consciousness.

* * *

Kazuma slowly opened his eyes.

Where I am? The celling, is this some kind of a cave? Last thing I remember is going for the final strike against the manticore. Seems like it worked or else I wouldn't be alive right now.

"Kazuma, you woke up! I was so scared!" Darkness threw herself at him and hugged him tightly.

"Ouch, you are heavy, I cant breathe. Darkness get off me."

"Oh, sorry." she got up and pulled him by a hand so he could stand.

"So how long was I asleep?"

"A few hours. I was scared that maticore actually got you when you collapsed like that after beheading it."

"Seems like I just pushed a little too far with that last attack."

"Tell me, what the hell was that skill?

"Unrelenting assault. It's a technique where you continuously attack your opponent with a sort of shadowstep based attack. During the cast I'm invincible which you saw when manticore tried to strike me with it's sting."

"This was really reckless if it wasn't for that, you would have died instantly! And what the hell happened later? How the hell were you able to control light of saber like that, if you never casted it before?"

"Actually I tried this technique with fireball once. I went pretty well and I was going to wait to test it with something more powerful until my new weapon is made, but without it I would never be able to kill the beast.  
Still I went a little overboard, I underestimated how much mana it would take to sustain the spell in this form and had to gamble on this final attack. Because of that I completely ran out of mana and even lost consciousness in the process. Well I'm better now, although it will take me another hour or so until I can teleport us from here, so let's just keep low until then."

Darkness nodded and they both sat down near the entrance to look out for possible dangers.

"Still to think you would pull something like that off, I'm impressed so say the least. First hearing about you killing the leshen, now seeing you deal with such a strong monster by yourself after coming up with such a extraordinary technique, you really are amazing when you put your back into something, Kazuma."

"Well it's only because everyone in this world seems to totally lack the common sense. Imagine what a genius like Megumin could do if she tried something else than her damn explosions." He couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed after a praise like that.

"Megumin, huh?" Suddenly she went silent and after a minute said quietly:

"Hey Kazuma, can I ask you something else?"

Of course.

"Are you really fine with the current situation between the three of us?"

The sudden change of topic took him by surprise. He didn't know what to answer on the spot.

"What do you mean by "current situation" I don't understand…"

"Don't play dumb with me."

There was no anger in her voice, she spoke calmly.

"You know exactly what I mean, but I'll say it aloud anyway.I mean this whole love triangle between me, you and Magumin."

He knew, that sooner or later, a conversation like that would come. He thought he had prepared himself enough for it, but all he could do was stare silently at her.

Darkness continued.

"You are just running away from the responsibility, aren't you? At first when we started living together it was all going well. We laughed, argued, did all those crazy and sometimes awesome things. We enjoyed ourselves as a group of close friends, but somewhere along the way, it changed a little.  
Because we both fallen for you."

She paused for a moment, and looked him dead in the eye. He couldn't speak but he returned the gaze.

Her mologue continued.

"You don't want to hurt neither of us, so you just sit there and let others make decisions for you.  
Megumin was the first to make a move on you, and because of that you chose her as a someone "more than a friend".  
It wasn't you who rejected me then, it was Megumin speaking through you, that's how I've been telling myself all this time. But your indecisiveness kept on going. I pushed my luck a little and also started pulling you towards me, with that I was able to steal your first kiss before megumin did. Few times we nearly crossed the final line, so I'm sure that with a little effort I could claim you for myself, before Megumin even considers going that far."

Darkness didn't know what happened some time ago, when Megumin offered herself to help me with "my little problem". If she knew she wouldn't be speaking that way right now. She wouldn't be able to keep this delusion, that Megumin was blueballing me. Actually it was me, who all this time lacked the courage to engage into something more, she was fine as long as I took responsibility, it was me who was a coward for so long. All and all it proves right to her point, I didn't make a choice, until now I let others make tough decisions for me, but not anymore…

"You see Kazuma, I didn't take you into a cave in a remote part of a forest by chance. With how things are going right now, I'm definitely going to be the one left alone. So I was waiting for a chance for quite some time now. I anticipated that you wouldn't be able to teleport for a while after waking up, so..."

She stopped, she needed to steel her resolve. This was the time to react.

"Darkness…"

But she didn't let him finish the sentence. She got up quickly and looked straight at him.

"I love you Kazuma. I refuse to let you go without trying. . I don't care about my family status, it can all go to shit for all I care as long as I get to stay by your side. If there is anything I can do to have you, I won't back down. This is my choice."

And this is mine, he thought.

He also rose up, but much slower than her. He needed time to get the courage to say those words, the words that needed to be said. Earlier, when he decided that he would choose the path to become a proper hero, he also made his mind about one more thing.

"I love Megumin. I'm sorry Darkness but I don't have those kind of feelings toward you. I've decided that once I come back home I will start a proper relationship with her. This is what my heart wants me to do, I'm sorry but I don't love you the way I do Megumin."

Darkness smiled, Kazuma could tell that he hurt her, but it was better than to leave her hanging with hope. For her sake he needed to be harsh, so that she could look for a new path in life, one without him as her future lover.

She turned away from him, wanting to run off, but before she could do that Kazuma grabbed her hand.

She turned around shocked.

"What are you doing, let me go."

"I won't let you go. Darkness, even though I don't have any romantic feelings towards you… I still love you as a friend."

She lowered her head, her long blonde hair covered her face.

Suddenly Darkness grabbed Kazuma in her arms and pulled him close to her chest. For a moment he thought she was going to try and seduce him one last time, but when he heard her quiet weeps, he understood immediately.

He hugged her and started petting her head.

"It's okay Darkness, it's okay."

"You better make Megumin the happiest girl in the world or I won't forgive you." She said with a trembling voice.

"I promise."

After that she cried so much that Kazuma's shoulder became wet with her tears.

She knew that she was making a mess and wanted to pull back from him.

But he didn't let her go.

* * *

"So it's finally time to get it."

Kazuma said while standing before the door to Prometheus.

Two days passed since he was alone in that cave with darkness. After he regenerated his mana enough, he teleported darkness and himself back to the capital.

The next day they once again went to grind levels. In the end Kazuma had gained so much mana and stamina with equilibrium, that he was now able to use three consecutive explosions in a row and could spam unrelenting assault like crazy.

Darkness didn't try to make any more moves on him. Seems like she came to terms with the rejection.

"So what kind of a blade you ordered Kazuma?"

"You'll see for yourself soon enough."

He went inside. He'stan was standing behind the counter, he didn't look pleased.

"Hi Kazuma, coming to get your sword I assume? And welcome to my forge, lady Lalatina."

"Please just call me Darkness." She said embarrassed upon hearing her name.

"So he'stan is it ready?"

"See for yourself."

As he said that he placed a beautiful sword on the counter. The blade was pitch dark and small shining dots were spread across it's entire lenght, they looked like stars, Kazuma thought.  
Closer to the edge it shifted more to the shade of blue and one large, more visible dot could be spotted there.

This was a masterpiece, you could say at the first glance that it wasn't just a regular weapon. But there was something wrong.  
What Kazuma wanted was a two handed sword and this was about hundred centimeters long, from the pummel to the tip, it couldn't even be called a longsword.

Kazuma took it into his hand, it was extremely light, so the weight that was not the reason for that.

"Oi He'stan don't get me wrong it looks like a work of art but I didn't ask for one handed weapon."

"Neither did I." As he'stan said that, he took another, identical sword from behind the counter.

"Huh, what the hell. Why did you make two one handed swords instead of one two handed as I asked you to do"?

"It's more complicated than that, trust me I tried, but because of those two bottles you brought me, I couldn't."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Come here I'll explain."

They took the weapons and went to the back of the shop, leaving confused Darkness behind.

"When I was forging the blade, I used those two bottles and poured their insides onto the heated metal. You said, they were supposed to be the tears of Aqua and blood of Eris. I didn't believe you back then, but after what happened next, I think you were telling the truth."

"At the start the red liquid that was supposed to be the blood, tried mixing with the colorless tears. But when they touched, the tears started glowing and second later they splitted the mass of metal exactly in half. I've never seen anything like that before. Afterwards I tried to melt the two parts together but no matter what I did, what kind of technique I used, they stayed separated. That's the reason why there are two swords now. I know it was not a part of our agreement and it bothers me."

Kazuma jaw dropped to the floor. Who in the world would have thought that Aqua disliked Eris so badly, that even her tears refused to stay anywhere near her blood. This is fucking ridiculous. How the hell is that even possible in the first place? Is it some kind of unconditional reflex? Yes, the contact with Eris's mana seems to be enough to trigger this kind of response. Also, can we still talk about this in manners of "disliking someone"? It looks more like some deep hatred to me. Is Aqua really that envious of Eris, or did something happen between the two in the past?

"Don't worry about that He'stan, there is no one in this world who would be able to put this two things together. And on top of that. He took the second sword in his other hand. Oh, yes that's the stuff It has the perfect length for me, the handle is also ideal and it's perfectly balanced, as all things should be.  
I finally feel like I have something worthy of being called a sword of a hero. Or I should say, swords of a hero."

Hearing my words, He'stan finally put on a bittersweet smile.

We returned to Darkness.

"Still, being bested by two small bottles, hurts my pride as a forgefather."

"Oi Kazuma, just how much did it cost you to have those two swords made for you?"

"Non a single coin, right He'stan?"

"I believe that you brought me a genuine tears of a goddess, so I'll hold onto our agreement. Also since I still feel like I failed my part, I have something to make up for you. Wait here a bit."

After a while he returned carrying two wrapped things.

"You finished them already?!"

"Who the hell do you think I am?! Something like this is a child's play for me. So, this is my apology for…"

Kazuma quickly put 100 million eris on the counter and took the wrapped things away from He'stan.

"That's the price we agreed on. I'll be back in a moment."

"Teleport."

After about 5 minutes Kazuma was back.

"Seems like you already hid them somewhere, He'stan laughed."

"Kazuma what was that? From the shape and size I'd say that those were…"

"Nothing important, yes!" Kazuma couldn't help but blush slightly.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you, that I also added this special small little detail, that you asked me for…"

"Darkness, we are leaving! Thank you for everything He'stan."

After quickly getting out of the shop Kazuma heard He'stan laughing wholeheartedly.

"Hahahah this is what it means to be young!"

Kazuma seems like you have some explaining to do. I won't dwell up on those two packed things, but tell me about the sword.

Ok, I'll skip the details. Basically those two weapons are closer to the magical staff, than they are to the regular white arm. They are made from the special alloy witch He'stan created by merging together a deldrimor steel with manatite ore. Then to strengthen their magical properties he... combined them with something that I gave him.

The content of those two bottles he spoke of before? What was is them?

He couldn't possibly tell her, that he gave He'stan Aqua's tears and Eris's blood.

"Sorry Darkness but I can't tell you, please just understand."

Darkness had a hard time agreeing, but she nodded her head after a while.

"So with how it is right now, I can use these swords both as a regular weapons and also as a catalyst for spellcasting. Good thing I learned dual wield yesterday or else I wouldn't be able to use them right now. Ok so today, sometime in the afternoon, we will be returning home."

"Afternoon? but it's barely past morning so what are we gonna do until then?"

"We are going to kill some monsters of course. I can't wait to test my new equipment."

"Also I should name them while megumin is not around so that she can't create another chunchunmaru. How the hell does a chirping sound of little birds relate to a fucking sword. Good name should have a meaning and relate to the object it is given, like for example how the pattern on those blades looks a lot like a night sky ant those two dots, like two stars… wait I have an idea."

He took out a piece of paper and scribbled something down. There was a story about two stars, that he always liked, it was short and beautiful, the tale about two lovers, separated by a galaxy.

He showed her the card. Two words were written there.

Vega and Altair.

* * *

"This… is not right."

MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA!

A distant cries echoed through the wind. In the distance two girls saw a dual wielding adventurer spamming spells like crazy.

"I think he lost it. I knew that this was going to happen sooner or later. Even since I saw him slaughter those orcs I knew that a day like this would come."

Kazuma wanted to go and look for a target to test his new weapons. He and Darkness teleported to the crimson demon village to look for potential targets. But because they already exterminated so many monsters in the surrounding forests, they couldn't find anything to kill.

It was when they finally decided to give up and just teleport back to Axel, when they stumbled across a group of Crimson demons leaded by Yunyun. Apparently there was some movement from the demon king forces and yunyun, trying to improve her reputation, gathered the guerrilla squad and went on to intercept them. She asked Kazuma if he wanted to join them and the result of that was the situation they were currently in.

"As expected of the leshen slayer. Those lowly demons are no match for him."

To say that Manatite sabers worked as intended would be like saying that a certain red eyed archmage likes explosion.

"You useless maggots, he is just a single adventurer, kill him already!"

In other words it was a total understatement.

"Light of saber." With a vertical slash he send out a yellow plasma edge in the direction of the one screaming curses on his underlings, it evaporated him instantly.

Turns out that divine related objects create great catalysts. So good in fact, that Kazuma could barely feel any mana consumption when he casted advanced magic spells. Also he could enchant the swords with light of saber and maintain it practically without any effort, it was almost like the swords were made to be used with this technique.

"I'll take you on."

Suddenly a tall, menacingly looking winged demon started walking in the direction of Kazuma. He was wielding a large double headed axe in one hand and a thick whip in the other.

Wait I heard of a creature like him, the one who wielded an axe and a whip, if I'm not mistaken his name is…

I'm Seklas the bloodthrister, the right hand of Yathia-sama, the daughter of the demon king-sama.

Oh, seems like a boss appeared, I'm level 21 already so I'll just put the point into this… Kazuma was looking on his adventurer's card, not paying too much attention to Seklas, who continued.

I've never heard of anyone like you before, you seem strong small man, I shall give you warrior's death.

This guy is bad news, I heard that he was responsible for killing the most of kingdom soldiers during their last clash with demon king army. They say, that he is totally resistant to magic, and could heal from the wound he applies to his opponents. He is presumably on the same level as a general. Darkness let's go, even Kazuma can't handle him on his own. The rest of you be ready to support us from the distance.

"I don't think we will be needed."

"What are you saying Darkness we have to hurry or else…"

"Ok Seklas, I'll be right back."

"Teleport."

Kazuma vanished. Both Yunyun and Darkness were just standing there unable to comprehend what just happened. Did he just run away for real?

"You coward! You don't have the guts to face me?! You…"

Kazuma reappeared again, carrying few bottles of the elixir in his hands.

"Sorry about that, but it looks like you are worth quite a lot of exp. It would be a waste to kill you on my current level so I'll just reset before that."

He drunk one potion and put the rest in his pocket.

"YOU MERE MORTAL I'LL EVISCERATE YOU FOR THAT!"

"Light of saber." Kazuma wasted no time and attacked the bloothrister.

The spell hit him, but it did absolutely nothing.

"You fool, no magic can harm me, no matter what you do, you can't hurt me."

"No magic huh? We'll see about that." Kazuma pointed Vega into the air and started chanting. "Darkness blacker than black and darker than dark…"

"Oi oi oi, he can't be serious is he really going to cast explosion out here?!"

Magic cirles started appearing above him.

"Oh, seems like for some reason I can't cast it on my blade. Well good to know for the future…"

Seklas charged forward and just when he was about to bring his axe down onto Kazuma.

"Teleport."

Kazuma swung his other sword around and teleported about 100 meters away from the giant demon.

"Don't run away you…"

"Explosion!" Kazuma brought Vega down and unleashed the spell. This time it looked a lot like what  
Megumin was able to produce on a daily basis.

"75 points, seems like I'm getting better at this."

"Why did he do that, after using explosion his whole mana will be drained and… wait how is he still able to stand."

"Actually Kazuma can cast 3 explosions on his own already, and that was before he got those two swords."

"Are you for real? Seems like equilibrium is way stronger than I thought, but still we shouldn't let him fight on his own..."

"You really are a tough bastard."

Seklas emerged from the flames. Seems like he wasn't totally resistant to magic after all.

"That hurt, to thing someone like you could cast an explosion and remain standing. You are dangerous, I'll kill you right now."

Seems like he wasn't able to resist it fully. Well it was only to be expected, it's explosion we are talking about right now. I wished I had a way to get rid of this annoying resistance, I'll be sure to learn some curses from Wiz later on, as for now, time to test another thing.

"Light of saber. Kazuma coated his swords with light of saber."

"Die!" Seklas charged forward once again but this time before he could reach Kazuma..

"Phase traversal."

This was another one of the skills that Mitsurugi showed him.

Kazuma teleported behind Seklas and thrusted Altair at him.

At first it looked like just another shadowstep technique. But it did more than just teleport you to your target.

The blade went into the flesh without resistance.

For a few second after using it, your attacks are unblockable, meaning that shields become useless, the attacks just pass through them. Although it doesn't work against armor and can still be parred by another weapon, Kazuma thought it could also work against magical resistance as it is basically a glorified magic shield. Seems like he was right.

"I got you. Unrelenting assault."

Kazuma attacked him from the front, he went for the head.

Seklas swung his whip straight at him.

"Kazuma!" Yunyun shouted, For a moment she thought that he hit Kazuma, but then it just passed through the adventurer, much to the shock of the both the crimson demon archamge and the bloodthrister.

"What is this trick…"

He wasn't able to finish the sentence, with a magically infused strike, Kazuma beheaded Seklas killing him on the spot.

Two girls approached him in a hurry.

"I told you, he would work it out somehow. Great job Kazuma."

"To think that you would make such a quick work of Seklas and that technique you used... Kazuma-san, you really start to scare me."

"Thanks Darkness, and thank you for taking me with you Yunyun, It was a great learning experience, seems like I found a way to bypass magical resistance, but I still had to get in melee which is not that convenient. Now for the rest of the group…"

The demons were running away in panic after their leader was slain.

"You don't think I'll let my exp escape, do you…"

* * *

It was around noon, when two girls were walking together to the usual spot. As it has been for the last few days, after the dinner Aqua and Megumin would venture outside the town, so that the crimson demon girl could practice her explosion.

However this time, when they reached the place, somebody walked out from behind the trees.

"Seems like I was right to wait here for you. Nice to meet you, my name is Yathia."

* * *

**So the demon king's daughter is finally going to make her apperance. As currently she is still unamed in LN, I decided to pick a name for her myself, what do you think about it?**

**So how will Kazuma be able to deal with her? **

**Only one way to find out, see you in chapter 5. **


	5. Chapter 5

Change of heart

**Warning, this chapter is the reason why this story is rated "M". If you are not keen on detailed describtion of violence and sexual content, please keep away from reading it. You have been warned. **

Chater 5: Birth of a hero.

"Welcome to the shop… oh it's you Kazuma-san."

"Hello again, Wiz."

Kazuma and Darkness walked inside. After Kazuma wiped out the rest of demon king forces, two adventurers decided that there was nothing more to do and that they might as well return to Axel earlier than they planned.

"Coming back for more potions already? Maybe moi should give you some discount after all…"

"Thank you Vanir but I don't need more right now. I actually run out of things to kill, so I'll just take a break for some time now. That is unless Wiz wants to grant me access to that place she spoke off some time ago."

"It's true that you are strong enough to enter it right now, but I think you should really take a break for at least a few days. I also suggest that you gather the rest of your party before that."

"In that case, I'll just wait until my manatite arrives, which will happen in…" He looked at Vanir

"No need to wory about it. Moi sees that in the following days you will be too busy to even think about this matter."

"Could you elaborate on that?" Strange words piqued his interest.

"No, as it is a path that will ultimately bring moi unimaginable riches, moi refuses to mess with it by telling you about future events."

"Seems like I won't be able to get anything from you, so Darkness, let's go to the guild hall, I want to properly name my swo…"

ALL ADVENTUERS PLEASE GATHER BEFORE THE MAIN GATE OF THE CITY. DEMON KING'S GENERAL HAS BEEN SPOTTED OUTSIDE OF THE CITY, I REPEAT…

"A general? Wait, with the defeat of Serena, this could only mean one thing…"

Kazuma nodded.

The strongest general, demon king's daughter was finally going to make her appearance.

* * *

"Kazuma-san you are here, thanks god!" Luna shouted the words as soon as she saw him approach the gate.

From the terrified look on her face he could tell that something was not right.

"What's going on Luna-san?"

"I repeat one last time, if you don't bring Kazuma Satou to me I'll burn this city to the ground!"

"As you heard, the demon king's daughter demands that you go to her and…"

"Well if she wants to meet me that badly that she is willing to destroy Axel, then I guess I have no choice. Make way people!"

"The crowd quickly split open and Kazuma with Darkness by his side walked forward."

"Oi oi oi he really came."

"What, you have to be kidding me, Kazuma would be the first to run off."

"Maybe he lost his mind."

The crowd was whispering some unpleasant things about him.

"What's the deal with them, you have any idea Kazuma?"

"It beats me. We'll see soon enough."

They finally reached the front of the crowd.

"I told you, he is not in the town, you demon bitch!"

He noticed a blue haired girl shouting at someone.

"Aqua?"

"Kazuma?! Why are you here?!"

I see you are fine Aqua, but where is Megumin?

"So it's you." Few hundred meters from them was a large group of strong looking demons. A small, white skinned girl, wearing a suit of a red-collored full plate armor stepped forward. She was holding a massive axe in her right hand.  
You are this troublesome adventurer, who in spite of being the weakest of the weak, managed to spoil my father's plans so much.  
My name is Yathia, I came here to kill you.

"You can try your luck and…" he started to unsheathe Vega and Altair, but he froze in place.

One of Yathia soldier moved forward as well, he was holding a dagger next to a throat of…

"Megumin! Oi Aqua what the fuck is going on?!"

The demon let go of the girl and she collapsed to her knees.

"I'm sorry Kazuma, she ambushed us when we were walking to our usual explosion spot. I managed to escape, but they got Megumin."

Kazuma was beyond furious, he decided that no matter what, he wouldn't let Yathia get away with this.

"Oi Yathia, if you did anything to her…"

"You can rest assured, no harm has been done to her yet, she is just binded by that individual. We wouldn't want to spoil the show...

"What do you mean by that?" Kazuma's voice was as cold as ice.

"Ho ho, such a scary voice. But don't bother trying putting up a tough act. I know that some time ago you were forced to drink a level resetting potion to beat Serena, so now you are even weaker than you were before. Ok then, I'll tell you what we are going to do.  
For opposing us, I'm gonna make an example out of you and those idiots in your party. First, I'm going to cut your arms and legs off. Then, I'll set the city on fire and slaughter everyone inside. I won't kill you right away, instead I'll let you watch my soldiers rape this crimson demon girl over and over again until they turn her into a pulp of minced meat. Who knows, maybe I'll also let them have their fun with you before I strangle you with your own gut. This is the fate that awaits you Kazuma!" She started laughing like a maniac.

Kazuma slowly took out his swords and spoke in calm tone. Darkness cringed when she saw the expression he had on his face.

"I'll kill you. Slowly. I will disembowel you with my swords and make you eat your insides. I'll drown you in your own blood, you will be begging me to just let you die, before I'm finished with you, you demon whore."

In the same time Megumin made her decision. She didn't hear Kazuma speak nor did she saw the adventurer approaching Yathia slowly, the tears in her eyes blocked the view completely.

Seems like there is no other way. She accepted her fate and started silently casting explosion. She poured all of her mana into the spell.  
I'd rather kill all of us with explosion, then let her rape me and torture Kazuma. This is how it ends, huh? I don't want it, I don't want it, please somebody save us, she started crying.

"Hahaha come at me then… oi, what's with all this mana you channel?" She turned her attention to Megumin.

She noticed?! Megumin was shocked, yathia somehow sensed what she was doing.

"You crazy bitch, you really want to cast the explosion here, I won't let it happen." she charged at Megumin.

Light of saber. Impossible odds. Phase traversal.

Yathia rose her axe into the air and brought it down onto Megumin, but the weapon never connected with her. Instead it fell to the ground along with the rest of yathia arm.

"Huh? What just happened…" before Yathia had a time to react Kazuma beheaded the demon binding Megumin and shouted:

"Megumin grab onto me!"

She was confused but she grabbed him by the arm.

Kazuma teleported both of them away. Darkness and Aqua quickly approached, while everyone else fell silent, astonished by what just happened.

"Megumin are you all right?!" Darkness shouted while grabbing the girl into her arms.

"Sacred break spell! Ok seems like nothing was casted on her, and she isn't hurt. But what…" Aqua looked at Kazuma and at the same time Megumin spoke, her eyes still filled with tears.

"Kazuma I was so scared! And what is going on? Did you just cast light of saber? But…" Kazuma put his finger on her lip and just hugged her tightly.

"I'll explain later, let's deal with Yathia first."

It's impossible! No magic can hurt me, so how can a lowly creature like you….

"Seklas was saying the same thing, before I separated his head with the rest of his body."

"You were the one who killed him?! Seklas was the strongest among my warriors, yet…  
I see, you are way more dangerous than I gave you credit for, I won't underestimate you second time.  
All troops, attack! Let none survive!"

Hundreds of demons charged forward.

Let's go everyone! All of the adventurers started running to intercept them, but before either side had a chance to move even 10 meters…

"EXPLOSION!"

The massive outburst of fire entangled all demon forces. Explosion was so powerful that the earth just split open and hundreds of tons of debris shoot up into the air.

"This is for destroying my staff you bitch!"

Kazuma grabbed Megumin before she fell to the ground, he was speechless.

She turned her head to Kazuma, who was already replenishing her mana with drain touch.

"Kazuma Kazuma..."

"Yes I'm Kazuma."

"How was that?"

"I've never seen anything like that before. But if I had to rate it… then it's about 140 points, great job Megumin."

She blushed after his praise.

Well it's only to be expected from the number one Archamge of the Crimson Demo…

"But it probably wasn't enough."

"Huh, what do you mean by that, no one could survive something like that…"

"To think you would push me that far, you mere humans."

Suddenly a figure emerged from the flames.

It was yathia, whose armor was now glowing white and covered her entire body, even the face. Still that was not the biggest change about her appearance. Not only has she regrown the lost limb, but even got an additional par of arms on top of that. She was holding a copy of that massive axe in each hand, for a total of 4 weapons.

"I knew she wouldn't go down that easily."

"But explosion is the most powerful spell in the world, how are we going to kill her now, Kazuma?!"

"I'll deal with her the same way I've dealt with Seklas. How's your mana Megumin?"

"Huh, now that you mention it… wait, for how long have you been using drain touch?!"

"Since I caught you after the explosion."

"But that would mean that I have enough for another…. Kazuma how the hell do you have so much mana?!"

" I said, I'll explain everything later. Yathia is coming. I'm going to intercept her, Megumin you are on standby."

"O-okay."

"Aqua be prepared to heal us, should anything go wrong."

"Leave that to me."

"Darkness, you are going to protect Megumin and Aqua. I'm counting on you."

"Roger that."

"Then here I go. Impossible odds."

Kazuma used the skill again. It was another one of those showed by Mitsurugi. It massively increased speed and agility, but required enormous amount of stamina for upkeep. Still, because of equilibrium, Kazuma had no problem keeping it on practically forever.

He started walking in the direction of his opponent.

"Oh, you are approaching me. Instead of running away you are coming to me."

"I can't beat the shit out of you without getting close first."

"Then come as close as you like Kazuma, I'm at my strongest right now, I'll rip your head from your spine!"

He quickly closed the distance between him and demon king's daughter and once in range…

"Light of saber. Phase traversal."

He used the combo and teleported behind Yathia. But this time rather than attacking, he used unrelenting assault immediately. Even after unleashing her full power yathia was not able to keep up with his speed and couldn't react in time.

"What's this, some kind of shadowstep attack, you are starting to get on my nerves."

He attacked from the front.

"Way too slow, I got you!" She swung all 4 of her axes at him at the same time.

"Kazuma!" Both Megumin and Aqua shouted at the same time. Darkness couldn't help but chuckle at their reaction.

4 weapons passed right through Kazuma. In the same time he slashed at her chest with Altair, but the attack was ineffective.

"Seems like she became even more resistant. Shit, once more."

He attacked from the different angle, but again, the blade couldn't pierce her armor.

"Fuck, how tough is that thing. Doesn't matter I'll open you up like a can of tuna!"

"Why you…"

Everyone watched in amazement as Kazuma kept on attacking from all possible directions, while Yathia was unable to land a single hit on the adventurer. He kept on going, spamming unrelenting assault over and over again, but was yet to do any damage to his opponent.

"They are moving so fast I can barely see anything."

"Go Kazuma, kill this bitch." Aqua shouted.

The crowd was chanting for him. For now he was able to make demon king's daughter look like an idiot with all his teleports, but one mistake could prove fatal, he knew that he needed to change his tactic.

"KOCCHI WO MIRO!" With the final strike of yet another unrelenting assault he attacked her from up above, using the gravity to his advantage, he unleashed a devastating strike using both of his swords strengthened with full power light of saber.

The force of the impact was strong enough to make the ground shake. The cloud of dust obstructed the view. Kazuma used it to teleport to the rest of his party. Yathia however, was still standing, a small scratch on top of her helmet was the only bit of damage she took.

Shit. Even after so much she still won't go down. I need something else…

"You piece of shit, I'll rip you in half!"

Yathia lost it, she charged forward.

"Darkness stop her, I need to think."

With pleasure. Blonde crusader moved forward.

Yathia unleashed a flurry of attacks at her, but all they were able to do, was make darkness face red with extasy.

"Such a mighty barrage, I'm barely able to hold my own… No I shall withstand it for as long as it takes!"

"Oi, stop that, why are you enjoying that…"

The problem is her armor. I don't have anything strong enough to pierce it. If it is able to withstand light of saber, then I have to use something more powerful, like…

The explosion. That was the obvious answer, but he tested already that it was impossible to use it with that technique. Explosion was way too complex and hard to control to enchant the sword with. Last time he tried doing that during the fight with Seklas, he wasn't even able to connect it with Vega and Altair. He was able to pull it off with the spells he was familiar with, like light of saber and fireball but for him Explosion was out of the question.  
But if it was for someone more experienced with it…

He looked at Megumin.

She was able to make her explosions into whatever shape she wanted. She had a perfect control over the spell, something that he himself lacked. If anyone was able to pull this off it was her.

"Megumin I need your help."

"Yes?"

"Take this."

He handed Vega to her.

"Wait I can't use swords I'm not…"

"Just take it and do as I tell you. I won't have you fight with it."

She grabbed the handle. Kazuma took Altair and touched the blade of Vega with the tip of the sword.

"Ok listen now. Start chanting explosion. No matter what, let's keep those swords together, if they separate, the spell could go off right in our faces."

"What?! Have you lost your mind?! What are you planning to do with it…"

"Megumin I believe in you, you are the only one who can do this, so please, trust me and start casting, Darkness won't be able to hold her off forever."

"Kazuma… Darkness blacker than black and darker than dark."

"Ok, now focus on the blade. He closed his eyes to concentrate. Try to envelop the blade with the spell, but keep it down as much as you could so I can hold it."

I see, so that's how he's been doing it with light of saber all this time, Megumin thought.  
Also what's the deal with this sword, my mana is flowing through it without any resistance. This is like a staff, no it's way better than any staff I've ever held before. And this color, could it be made of manatite? I have so many questions to ask…

"Yes that's perfect, now try to envelop the other blade with it as well, I'll help you by pulling a little myself. So far so good, ok slowly now…"

Soon enough Vega and Altair were both glowing with red light.

"Ok Megumin, now without holding back, unleash the explosion onto the blades."

"Kazuma please be careful. Strike forth Explosion!"

In the instant she poured all her mana into the spell to give it it's final form. Kazuma quickly grabbed Vega from Megumin, who collapsed to the ground. The strength of the spell was so great, that he could barely hold the swords, he needed to act fast.

"Aqua!"

She understood immediately.

"Darkness, get away from Yathia!"

Darkness was breathing heavy after taking so many of the demon king's daughter attack, but she managed to gather enough strength to jump away from her.

"Phase traversal. Kazuma teleported before Yathia."

"Finally! Die Kazuma!"

She attacked him with all of her 4 axes.

In the same time Kazuma, who was still under the effects of impossible odds attacked her with a horizontal cut.

Altair clashed with her weapons and with the sound of the explosion, shattered them all to pieces.

"I-impossible!"

Thousand cuts! Wasting no time Kazuma unleashed a flurry of attacks. Each created a shockwave that split the ground open. Kazuma kept on goinng, destroying Yathia armor and dismembering her in the process. As her limbless body landed on the ground, Kazuma let go of the spell.

Yathia was screaming in agony.

"You, piece of shit, I'll never forgive yo…"

Her speech was cut short by Kazuma, who shoved vega into her open mouth.

"Please save your energy Yathia. He said with an innocent smile. We have a long day ahead of us, I made a promise to you, and I'm going to keep it." His smile was becoming more twisted with each word.  
"If I remember correctly you wanted to strangle me with my own gut, right? That seems like a wonderful idea for the start. And don't worry about dying, if that happens I'll just ask Aqua to resurrect you, we wouldn't want our fun to end too quickly."

"-elepor…"

'No chances. Light of saber."

In a quick and precise move, Kazuma cut her head right off with Altair.

"Damn, beheading is becoming my thing." He took severed head of demon king's daughter and rose it into the air.

Everybody was just standing silently. Then knew that Kazuma's party has been responsible for defeating few generals already, but they never would have thought that Kazuma himself, whose reputation has been terrible for as long as they could remember, would pull off something like that. As the silence was becoming awkward, a blonde haired woman marched forward and shouted.

"The final demon king's general has been slain by Kazuma Satou, the strongest adven… No the strongest hero and savior of Axel."

Luna's words changed everything. The crowd at the gate erupted. They quickly run to Kazuma and started throwing him into the air.

"So I believe it's time to celebrate. Everyone, today all drinks and food are on the house, you can thank our new hero, Kazuma-san for that." After Luna said that the crowd got even more lively.

Kazuma was having a blast. Yes, this was the moment he was waiting for, finally he has been recognized as a hero. All the hard work paid off in the end.

"Ok guys you heard her, tonight we will party like never before. Ok then, put me down, please."

Kazuma!

As soon as he touched the ground a small girl landed on him and knocked him to the ground.

"Oi Megumin, that hurt, also how the hell are you able to move so soon after…"

He looked at Darkness. It was her who threw Megumin at him.

"I think you have some explaining to do before that."

"Yeah, sorry about that, I got carried on, I'll join you later everyone."

"Then we'll be off." Few voices shouted. In matter of seconds everyone was gone. Adventurers wouldn't let an opportunity for free alcohol and food pass.

"Now then let's start with…"

Kazuma! As soon as he started getting up, another person knocked him over. This time it was Aqua.

"I knew you wouldn't abandon your goddess so easily. But what the hell was that final attack?!"

Megumin who this entire time had her head buried into his chest suddenly looked Kazuma right into the eyes. He never saw her so excited before.

"Yes Kazuma, an attack like that should have an awesome name, if you want I can name it for you, what about…"

"Actually Megumin, I do in fact have a name for it, but I don't think it's necessary. Still it's pretty cool one, you want to hear it?"

"Of course!"

For him it was obvious how to name this attack. In the old Chinese story Altair was separated from Vega by a deep and wide river. The moment Kazuma's Altair connected with Vega, which was being held by Megumin, was like the fated encounter between two lovers. To pass the galaxy separating them, that act could only be called one thing…

"The Milky Way crossing."

* * *

Kazuma was walking with Megumin.

As soon as he started talking, Darkness suddenly grabbed Aqua and dragged her off into the direction of a city. She told the useless goddess that she would explain everything to her. Aqua was resisting at first, but after being reminded that today everything in the guild is on house, she started running on her own.

Kazuma thanked Darkness in his mind. Before turning his attention to a confused Megumin.

"So I heard that you were interrupted on your explosion trip today. What about going there now? I'll start explaining on the way."

During the trip, Kazuma told her everything. Well, almost everything. He told her about the level resetting potion, about his leveling with Yunyun, about Vega and Altair and about going with Darkness and killing Seklas. However he didn't tell her what had happened in the cave after his fight with the manticore and also left out anything regarding explosion. She didn't know that he learned the spell, which was perfect for the plan he had in mind.

"Still Kazuma, even though I now understand why you didn't come home for so long, I still think you should have told us about that. For so long I thought that it was my fault that you ran away."

"So you were thinking that I wasn't coming back because of our argument earlier? Oh, I never apologized for that, I'm sorry Megumin."

She blushed.

"It my fault as well, I shouldn't have used such an underhand tactic on you, forgive me Kazuma."

He grabbed her hand and kept on walking.

"I already did."

Megumin face turned even more red, but she squeezed his hand as well.

"Seems like we arrived at the place."

It was their usual spot near the ruined castle.

"So Megumin, I already gave you enough mana, ready to cast your explosion?"

As a number one mage of the Crimson Demon I'm always ready to unleash my magic. But my staff…

"It was destroyed when Yathia ambushed you earlier, right?"

She nooded silently. Kazuma knew how much she liked that staff.

"Well, I actually have something for you. Wait here a second."

"Teleport."

With that Kazuma vanished. Megumin was still shocked that he learned all those spells on his own.

"I'll probably never get used to the fact that he can use advanced magic…"

Kazuma was back already. In his hands were the same two packed things, he picked up from he'stan in the morning.

"This one is for you. And about the second one… well you will see soon enough."

He gave her on of the packages. Her eyes started glowing.

"Is this what I think it is?"

She unpacked it hastily. It was a staff, but not just any staff. She could tell from the first glance, that it was made by a world class artisan. It's shaft was made from the highest quality spiritwood, which was second only to manatite in terms of mana conductivity. Talking about manatite, a large reddish manatite orb was placed in staff's head.

"Beautiful. Is it really for me?"

Yes, think about this as a gift to start a new path…

"Wait, have you finally chosen to walk the path of explosion with me, if that is the case…"

"I'm not talking about that. Anyway just use it already, I guess that you started silently casting explosion..."

"Don't be ridiculous, such a wonderfull staff should only be used on a properly chanted spell so that the whole world could hear it, just like that…"

"Darkness blacker than black and darker than dark I beseech thee, combine with my deep crimson…" A large magic circle appeared above the castle, while second smaller one was created under megumin.

"Strike forth Explosion!"

This explosion was even stronger than the one Megumin casted during fight with Yathia. But something else was different as well. Kazuma was prepared to grab magumin as fast as she would finish casting. But even after finishing the spell, she remained standing. Still, even though she didn't collapse, it has took its toll on her and she had to use the staff to help herself stand straight.

"Kazuma grabbed her into his arms and started giving mana to her. 160 points. Nice explosion Megumin." She didn't even gave him a thumb up, she just barraged him with words.

"Kazuma, this staff is extraordinary, even though I didn't hold anything back, It didn't use all my mana!"

"So you like it?"

"This is the best think I got in my entire life." She kissed him on the cheek. "Thank you Kazuma."

"Then what about one more explosion?" He let go of her. His heart was beating so hard, that it could jump out from his chest. He had to regain his composure…

I would love to, but you would need to give me more mana than that…

"Don't worry about that, just start casting already."

I see, so we are doing an imaginary explosion, huh? Well it was only to be expected, considering how much high level spells Kazuma casted today, he probably didn't have any more mana to spar. Even though this whole equilibrium he told me about sounds really powerful there had to be a limit to it.

"Ok then here I go… Wait Kazuma what are you doing?"

Kazuma started unpacking the second thing.

"What?! What's the deal with that?"

"This one is for me, it's the matching one to yours."

It was the same kind of staff, that megumin was holding right now. The only difference was that the manatite orb was green rather than red. Then Megumin noticed something.

"What is this weird looking metal band near the head? And the same one is on mine too…"

Kazuma heart skipped a beat. He didn't expect her to notice it so quickly. He had to pull himself together, if she started meddling with it and somehow…

"It's just a decoration, he lied. He'stan, the one who made it, decided to add it, he lied again. Does it bother you? if that's the case I can…"

"I actually think it's pretty cute."

"Well if that's the case, then let's continue with this little act. Mind if I join you?"

"I knew it, you really want to join me on a path to reach the ultimate explosion. But first let me warn you…"

"No, I have no interest in the spell, so I won't learn it. I just feel like doing it, that's all."

Megumin looked a little disappointed, but she continued.

"Then let's go, together. Listen, first you need to strike a pose like this. Darkness… "She did everything like usual, but this time nothing was happening, still Megumin was putting on her usual act. Kazuma joined her, but stopped near the end. Megumin was so fired up that she didn't notice it.

After steeling his resolve Kazuma said loudly.

"Megumin, I love you."

"Strike forth Ex… Huh?"

She turned around shocked by his words, but as soon as she was facing his direction.

"-plosion." He kissed her and in the exact moment the orb in his staff started glowing. Not a second later the same thing happened to megumin's staff. She felt a rush of mana into her body and a massive explosion went off in the distance.

200 points. This is even more powerful than I expected…

Suddenly Megumin pushed Kazuma off, much to his surprise.

"Kazuma you idiot!"

Fuck did I overdo it? But everything was going fine just a second…

"I love you too!" She stepped forward and kissed him passionately. He was suprised at first but quickly pushed back as well.

After they separated, Megumin said, her face red as a tomato.

"To think you would take my first kiss before I could even say "I love you", Kazuma you are the worst, also didn't you tell me before, that you would never learn explosion?!"

"Sorry, I wanted to surprise you, so I lied about that."

"And those staffs…"

"They are connected to each other, it's not good to rely solely on drain touch, so I had them created for us. With that I can give you mana, even if we are few meters away."

"Y-you said, that they are something to start a new path with, what do you mean by that?"

"Our path together of course. I decided that I won't run away from responsibility. I'm tired of this whole between friends and lovers thing, Megumin, I made my decision."

"What about Darkness…"

"I rejected her, properly this time. She had a hard time getting over it, but it seems like I managed to get through to her."

"If you made her cry…"

"Oh she was crying like a baby. It was obvious that she was going to, but it was something that I needed to do."

"You really are cruel, Kazuma."

"I just finally decided to go after what I want. And what I want…"

He hugged crimson demon girl close to his chest.

"… is you."

And kissed her deeply. This time however something was different. A new sensation spread through his mouth. He understood what was going on..

Aa the sun was getting low he was French kissing a beautiful girl while an enormous fireball was slowly dying out in the distance. Now, this is a fantasy setting he was wishing for.

After a minute they separated their lips , both gasping frantically for air. Still embraced closely, they just stared in each other eyes, until Megumin felt something pressing against her, which could only mean one thing.

"Kazuma it's poking me…"

"I apologize for the unforgivable behavior of my son."

"How many times do I have to tell you that it's fine. Once we get to the mansion I…"

Kazuma pushed Megumin forward. As they were falling to the ground…

"Teleport."

A second later they both landed on the bed in his room.

"You will what?"

Megumin's face was as crimson as her eyes.

"D-did you plan all this?"

"Isn't it normal for a man to take the initiative?"

"But up until now you were such a coward and now…"

"This is not the nicest thing to say. Does this mean you don't like it when I lead the way?"

"I love you regardless. But such a sudden development…"

"Yeah you are right, there is no need to rush this moment, let's go slowly…"

"Then I'll be in your care…"

A minute has passed and all they did was just stare at each other. No miracles here, Kazuma was still a virgin and saying such a cool lines, took everything he had. His heart and mind were racing, even though he knew what to do, he just couldn't bring himself to go further.

Megumin chucked.

Kazuma felt his pride as a man slowly slipping away.

"P-please don't laugh at me."

"But you were acting so confident up until now. Well, seems like there is no other way, let me help you a bit."

With that she gently pushed him away and sat on the bed opposite to him. She started off by throwing her cape, hat and boots on the floor. She took off her gloves and started working on her belt. The entire time Kazuma watched in amazement, he's never been so turned on during his entire life.

"Please don't stare like that, It's embarrassing."

"Sorry Megumin, but you are just way too beautiful."

She turned her head away and mumbled.

"I-idiot, hurry up start undressing too."

She was right this is no time to falter. He quickly rose up from the bed, turned around and got rid of all his clothing. Seeing that, megumin also picked up the pace and soon enough they were both naked. Neither of them wanted to take the next step.

Megumin rose her head, she wanted to tell Kazuma to face her way, but when she looked at his back, she noticed three long scars on it.

"Kazuma what the hell happened to your back?"

He was surprised by a sudden question.

"Oh this is a little memento from my fight with the leshen." He turned around without thinking, seeing naked Megumin on the bed, he froze.

"L-leshen?!"

Megumin got up and stood next to him.

"Did you really say leshen?! The legendary monster that is said to be the the worst possible opponent for the mage?! How did you manage to survive that?!"

"I killed him with the explosion, he stuttered."

"You really did?!"

She got closer and grabbed his hand.

"That's incredible, Kazuma I always wanted to slay a creature like that…"

"Megumin!"

"Huh?" she finally noticed the situation they were in right now. Her naked body was pressing against his and her face was just millimeters away from his.

She lowered her head ready to die from the embarrassment, but then she noticed something else.

"So this is Kazuma's Excalibur…"

"Yes this is a holy sword that… Hey stop calling it that way."

"Isn't it a little too big?"

Kazuma has been incredibly lucky his entire life. Seems like even before that he won a genes lottery, as nature decided to gift him with an enormous package.

"It's so hard and warm…"

Seems like the curiosity got the better of her, as she started touching his penis with her small hands.

"Megumin… do you want me to feel good?"

She nodded.

"Then grab it and start moving your hand up and down."

She did just that. Her moves were clumsy and nervous, but Kazuma still felt incredible.

This is way better than doing it myself. Well I shouldn't be the only one enjoying that.

He leaned forward and started kissing her neck. At the same time he moved his hands down and started gently groping her butt.

She moaned a little and started stroking him faster.

"Ok, time to take the initiative."

Suddenly he picked Megumin up bridal style. She took a deep breath in surprise as he gently placed her on the bed and lied beside her. He grabbed her chin and kissed her deeply. She closed her eyes and placed her hands behind his head.

He moved his hand down and started massaging her breath.

She broke the kiss, averted her head and said quietly.

"I'm sorry they are not as big as Darkne…"

"They are yours, so they are perfect."

He moved on top of her, and started sucking her nipple.

Suddenly a wave of pleasure hit her, her moans becoming increasingly loud as Kazuma was starting to pick up the pace.

He stopped after a while and as she was catching her breath, he went down on her and spreading her legs, positioned himself before her entrance.

He was shocked by a sight of her small pussy, this was his first time seeing something like that in real life.

"Kazuma, what are you…"

Her voice was interrupted by another wave of pleasure, as Kazuma started touching her and slowly rubbing her clit.

"Megumin I'm going to make you feel really good now." He watched a lot of porn during his life in japan and after coming to this world he had became a regular at the succubus shop, so he decided to try something else now. He spread her pussy a little and started to lick it with his tongue.

Her moans became even louder as her entire body started shaking. He pushed his tongue deeper into her.

"Kazumaaa please stop, I feel like I'm going to lose my mind."

He continued pleasing her for another few minutes until..

"Kazuma!" She grabbed his head and her entire body went into convulsions as she reached her climax.

She collapsed on the bed, the strength leaving her body completely.

Both of them were breathing heavily. Kazuma could wait no longer.

"Megumin, I…"

"Kazumaaa I want you inside…"

His heart skipped a beat again. He took his cock in his hand and placed it before her entrance. It looked wet enough.

"Megumin are you ready?"

"G-go ahead I'm prepared."

He pushed forward. The tip went in, as Megumin started breathing even faster.

He was careful not to hurt her, but soon enough he met a resistance.

"I'm sorry Megumin, this might hurt a little."

He pushed forward and Megumin let out a small cry of pain. A delicate smell of iron filled the air, as Kazuma took her virginity.

"Is it done..? is it all in?"

"No, this was only the tip…"

"Only the tip?!"

Megumin are you okay?

"It's scary so please hold me."

He hugged her tightly, and started slowly going futher inside. After a while he reached all the way to the bottom.

"It's so deep inside…"

"It's incredible, I never felt like this before. Megumin's pussy is so small, that I can't completely fit in."

"There's more…? It's ridiculous. Kazuma's Excalibur is way too big."

Damn this girl! Suddenly saying something so cute!

Kazuma could no longer hold himself back.

"Megumin I'm starting to move."

Wait, I…

He started slowly at first, at the same time Megumin loud moans echoed through the room.

He kissed her deeply and started thrusting more and more. Now stopping for a moment, he kept on going, each push more powerful than the last.

"Kazumaaa, my belly feels hot."

Kazuma was lucky again. Not many guys manage to make a girl cum, during their first time. Well it was all because of equilibrium, that he managed to pull that off. It turned out that there was one more factor, that was determined by stamina, other than running and using weapon skills…

"Ride this feeling Megumin, I'm also close."

He continued fucking her without holding anything back.

"Kazumaa, my head is going blank. I-I'm…"

Using the last bit of strength she had, she grabbed Kazuma's head and kissed him, shoving her tongue into his mouth.

Upon reaching her climax, her insides twisted and squeezed Kazuma. This was too much for him to handle. He pushed himself inside as far as he could and embracing Megumin tightly he shoot his seed inside her deepest parts.

"It's filling me up…"

He continued cumming for what felt like an eternity. After that, he pulled himself out of her. He was probably making a mess, but he didn't care. He lied beside Megumin and pulled the covers over them.

She turned to the side and he hugged her from behind.

"Megumin, I love you."

"I love you too Kazuma."

With those words she put her head on his arm and almost immediately fell asleep.

As Kazuma looked over her shoulder, he noticed a weird shaped bottle on top of the night table beside the bed.

….

OH NO, I totally forgot about that. I finished inside her, what if she ends up pregnant?!

This was a bottle of contraception he bought from Vanir some time ago. He prepared it in case something happened today, but because he was so busy with Megumin, he forgot to drink it.

"Shit, I…"

Suddenly Megumin turned around and quietly mumbled in her sleep.

"Kazuma… Stay with me forever."

All his worries vanished in a second. He looked at the corner of a room where two staffs were standing next to each other.

If that happens, then that special detail will definitely come in handy, was his last thought before sleep took him over.

* * *

**Yeah, so that just happened. **

**This chapter concludes the first part of the story, I don't know how many more I'll make. I have an idea for an ending, and some important scenes, but nothing more. Still, you should expect at least 2 more chapters and an epilogue till the end of the month.  
This is the deadline, as my final term starts in november and I won't be able to continue the story. I don't know how it will turn out, but I definitely won't leave it unfinished. **

**With all that said, see you in chapter 6. **


	6. Chapter 6

Change of heart

Chapter 6: Temporary peace.

When Kazuma opened his eyes, sun was already pretty high up. He knew that he was going to sleep for a long time, considering the amount of fighting he did the day before. As he had no plans for the day, it didn't bother him much. However what he didn't expect, was that Megumin would still be sleeping beside him. She usually got up pretty early in the morning so that was quite surprising.

Well, she's been through a lot, so I should let her rest some more, but still…

Looking at beautiful sleeping face made his heart warmer. Yet it didn't only create innocent feelings. Remembering the events of previous evening, Kazuma had to try really hard to restrain his urges, so he wouldn't do anything that could make his worthy of being called Trash-zuma.

"Lurk."

He got out of the bed as quietly as he could, dressed up and went to the kitchen to prepare breakfast.

Looks like Darkness and Aqua still haven't returned from the guild, well considering how wild the party after the defeat of Beldia was, this was only to be expected.

There was also a reason to believe, that this time around the celebration would last even longer. Yathia was the final general of the demon king and her defeat meant that for the time being, there should be no further movement from his forces.

Kazuma was never really interested in the news from the battlefront, so he didn't know about the situation there. Still, with the death of Yathia, the barrier around the castle had to collapse, so the time for attack was coming soon.

No reason to dwell too much on that though. I feel that during those last few days I've done enough to enjoy a temporary rest.

He took two plates of scrambed eggs and bacon and put them on a tray. He added two glasses of juice and took the entire thing upstairs.

Yes, now was not the time to be worried about demon king and such. Because the more important matter appeared. He opened the door to his room. Megumin opened her eyes for just a moment and turned around on the bed.

"Rise and shine Megumin, I brought you breakfast. "

All things considered, he screw up. He had been planning their first time for a while, and even though everything went well, he forgot the most important part – protection.

Megumin yawned and slowly sat up. Her hair was a mess and her small breasts were fully exposed.

This girl could very well be already pregnant with my child. Taking care about her nourishment is one of the most important things from now on.

"Good morning Kazuma. "

"Good Morning Megumin, though actually it's closer to the noon than morning."

"So I've been asleep for so long? Well it's only to be expected, considering what happened yesterday…"

She noticed that she was still naked, and in embarrassment quickly pulled the cover higher.

"No reason to cover yourself up. I already seen all there was to see and I have a feeling that it won't be the last time".

"That's sexual harassment, scum-zuma."

He couldn't help but tease her a little.

He sat on the edge of the bed and after taking away his portion, put a tray before her.

With an angry expression she took the fork and started eating.

"It's good. Still, aren't you parental instincts kicking in too soon Kazuma?"

He moved closer to her.

"So you'd rather see me running away to capital, you helpless tsund…"

Megumin shoved a piece of bacon into his mouth.

"Don't you dare say anything about running away, you just came back so I'm not letting you go anywhere.  
And if you would leave me alone after yesterday, then you really are a beast Kazuma. "

Kazuma swallowed the piece of meat.

"Damn it girl, who do you take me for? Would the strongest hero of Axel, do such a vile thing, as running away from responsibility?"

"Luna-san must have spent too much time on the sun when she came up with this whole hero thing."

"Maybe I should teleport to the capital anyway."

"Do that, and I'll never have sex with you again. "

"Oh, so you are saying that if I stay here, I can expect something to happen? "

"Are you really that lustful Kazuma?"

"I can't help it, I am a man and my girlfriend is sitting naked on a bed, just a mere meter away from me."

Megumin lowered her head a bit after he said that. A slight blush covered her face.

"G-girlfriend…"

"If all that happened doesn't make us a couple, then nothing will. That being said…"

He took a bottle from the night table and drank it.

"Huh, wait, isn't that this weird potion you bought from Vanir a long time ago. I remember you saying some weird things about it, what does it do? "

"It's a contraception. I don't know exactly how it works, but if I drink it, there is zero chance that I'll knock you up. I forgot to drink it yesterday, no way to change what already happened, but I'll never make the same mistake again. "

"I see, if that's the case, then it really will prove useful in the future… wait, so why are you drinking it right now… Kazuma are you for real?"

"Don't think I'll be satisfied after that one time yesterday. Darkness and Aqua still haven't returned to the house, sooo…"

"You really are a lost cause Kazuma" She said with a small smile on her face.  
At least let me finish the breakfast..."

* * *

They ended up doing it till noon. After that they finally cleaned Kazuma's room, took a bath and went outside into the direction of the guild.

"Megumin, I understand that you want to show off with your new staff, but why the hell do I have to take mine with me as well?"

Before they went out Megumin insisted that they both take their new equipment with them. Kazuma was not only carrying Vega and Altair, but also his staff, that Megumin shoved into his hand when he wanted to leave without it.

"Isn't it obvious Kazuma? It's to show off to everyone that we are two kindred spirits, connected on their path to achieve greatness and power. "

"Wouldn't something like that be enough?"

"With those words he grabbed her hand."

"Wait, holding hands like that, if people see this…"

"They will think that we are a normal couple on top of this whole kindred spirits thing."

Megumin blushed vigorously, but didn't let go of Kazuma's hand until they reached the building in the center of the town.

"Oi, what the hell happened here?"

The sight that greeted them spoke of some kind of natural disaster occurring the day before. Most of the windows were broken, the door were missing and on top of that there puddles everywhere.

"All this water… Kazuma do you think what I'm thinking?"

"Yes, there could be only one person responsible for this…"

They went inside, as they expected the guild was a mess and there were drunk adventurers lying on the tables, the floor and pretty much any flat surface.

"There is no one standing…"

"Kazuma, over here!"

Megumin pointed on one of the tables where a blonde haired girl was sleeping.

"Ok, Darkness located."

They moved closer and Kazuma shook her shoulder to wake her up.

"O-oh good morning there, Kazuma, Megumin."

"Darkness I see you are somewhat fine, but where the hell is Aqua."

Darkness didn't answer, instead she just pointed her finger downwards.

Megumin and Kazuma looked under the table. The blue haired goddess was laying there and snoring loudly.

"Ok, seems like you are both fine, but this place looks awful, what the hell happened here yesterday?"

"M-many things. I'm sorry Kazuma, my head hurts, could you please leave me be for some time?"

"Ok, I'll ask for detail later, come I'll teleport you and Aqua to the mansion and…"

"I'll stay here, the party is not yet over."

"What do you mean by not yet over!? With all those people laying around, it looks pretty over to me."

"We've all been waiting for you to come, now that you're here, we can start for real, but…"

She started massaging her forehead, in the same time someone approached them.

"Oh it's Kazuma-san and Megumin-san."

"Good morning Luna-san. Please don't tell me that Aqua made this whole mess herself?"

"Well the party got out of control at some point and well… you see…"

"How much?"

"Huh?"

"How much do I have to pay for Aqua? I'll be sure to take that sum away from her next allowance."

"No no, you don't have to pay anything for it. This whole thing was meant to celebrate your accomplishments, so there is no need to worry about something like that.  
Also you finally came, so we can start for real now."

Kazuma looked around him.

"No matter how you look at this chaos, there is no way to start anything right now.  
How's the guild staff?"

"Well to be fair, the rest of the guild management is in no shape to do anything at all. I'm also not feeling at my best right now."

"I see, Megumin come with me for a minute. We'll be back shortly."

"Teleport"

After ten minutes they returned, each carrying a box filled with some bottles. They've put them on the ground and Kazuma took two flasks out.

"Those are hangover potions from Wiz. Give them to everybody and they should be fine in the next hour or so.  
Here darkness, this one is for you, and a bottle for Aqua, when she wakes up."

"T-thank you Kazuma, you are a lifesaver."

Darkness took the bottle and drank it in one go. After that she lied on the table again.

"Are you sure about that Kazuma-san? Those potions must have costed a bit."

"Don't mind it, everybody was waiting for me, so this is the best I can do."

"Ok, then I'll distribute them to everyone. Could you please return in the next few hours? We'll get this place back in shape until then."

"Are you sure you don't want us to help with anything more?"

"No Megumin-san, you've done enough, please enjoy yourselves until we are done here."

They left the guild, once outside Megumin spoke.

"Ok then Kazuma we have some time on our hands, so what about a quick date"?

"Huh, this is a little unexpected, but fine by me. So, what would you like to do?"

"Shouldn't you decide on your own? It's up to the man to…"

He put a hand on her shoulder. And said with an innocent smile.

"You want me to decide, huh? You know exactly what I would like to do…"

"Oh, I'm hungry like hell, let's go to a restaurant Kazuma!"

She made few quick steps forward with a troubled expression. Kazuma couldn't help himself.

"Yeah I'm also hungry, seems like after doing it so many times today…"

"Darkness darker than dark…"

"Oi oi oi I'm joking, beside I you can just teleport away, so you won't do anything to me with this spell."

Megumin stopped casting and turned around angry. Kazuma smirked and grabbed her by a hand. They started walking down the street like the most normal couple in the world.

After a while they finally reached the place. The best restaurant in Axel, "Unlimited Flavor Works".

"Choosing such an extravagant place to eat, Kazuma where did your usual cheapskate behavior go?

"It's our first official date, so we might as well do something to make it fell more special.

"But we probably won't be able to enter without a reservation…"

"I don't think it will be a problem."

They approached the porter, as soon as he saw them…

"Oh it's Kazuma-san, please come inside, we will prepare a table for you and your companion."

He opened the door for them with a smile on a face. As soon as they entered a waiter lead them to their table and handed them the menu.

Megumin gazed on the prices, they were ridiculously high.

"Kazuma I think that…"

"Please take your time and choose, also don't worry about the prices, we wouldn't dare to take money from the savior of the city."

After saying those words, he walked away, leaving shocked Megumin and smiling Kazuma alone.

"Y-you anticipated this would happen?"

"Well kind of, I didn't expect such a warm welcome, but seems like the hero of Axel has his privileges."

They ordered a full course meal consisting of an stuffed mushroom as an appetizer, main course of a medium done beef steak and ice cream cake for dessert, which Megumin enjoyed the most.

"This is delicious. I wish Komekko could try it… "

Kazuma put his hand up, waiter came running to him.

"Yes Kazuma-san?"

"I'd like one more… no actually three more servings of this dessert. And could you please pack them up for a takeaway?"

"Of course, right away"

He vanished as quickly as he came.

"What was that for?"

"You said you wanted Komekko to try it, so why don't we drop by your parents place after we finish eating?"

"Well…"

"We should probably tell them about, you know…"

"Huh, where did that come from?!"

"It's only fair they know they can be grandparents soon, don't you think so?"

Megumin fell silent, looking like she was conflicted about something. Then she sighed.

"Guess I'll be honest with you."

"Huh?"

"I wanted to mess with you a little, but seems like you are serious about taking responsibility, so I'll tell you. "

"Tell me about what?"

"Did you really think, I'd let you come inside me if I knew that there was a high chance of me becoming pregnant in the process? "

"Wait you mean…"

"I won't give you the details, but the chances that we actually ended up making one are pretty slim."

"How slim exactly"

"Close to zero."

"O-oh I see…"

"You don't seem very happy about this revelation."

"You know…"

Megumin chuckled and grabbed Kazuma's hand.

"I'm glad that you are this serious about it, but it's still too early for us to have a child. "

"Yeah you're right…"

"Also before that you should marry me and I don't see you doing anything like that anytime soon… wait, why is your face getting red all of a sudden?"

"I-it's nothing, please don't worry about it…"

* * *

After that they finished the meal, took the cakes they teleported to the crimson demon's village.

"So Kazuma, like we agreed, not a word to my mother that we had sex. If she learns about that, she won't let us out of the house until we get engaged."

"Yeah, let's keep our head down for a time being. "

They approached the house and Megumin knocked on the door, they flung open and a small, black haired girl jumped onto Megumin.

"Big sister!"

"Hello there Komekko." Megumin hugged her little sister tightly.

"Komekko, I told you not to… Oh Megumin, you are back, and with Kazuma-san… please come inside."

They went into the living room and sat around the table.

"I'm glad to see you two back together, but what brings you here."

Kazuma put three boxes with cake on the table.

"We were in a restaurant and this ice cream cake was really delicious, so we decided to bring you some."

"Cake?!"

Komekko's eyes were shining in excitement.

"Yes, try some Komekko-chan."

She quickly unpacked it and dug the spoon into it. Judging from her smile, she really enjoyed it.

"I see you two are fine now, I was a little worried when I heard, that you had an argument, but I knew Kazuma-san would manage."

"Talking about that, there is also another reason for our visit…"

Kazuma rose his eyebrow, what was she getting at?

"Another reason? What are you talking about Megumin?"

"Mother, please let me properly introduce him. This is Kazuma Satou, my boyfriend."

Kazuma couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed.

"Huh, oh right… I'll be in your care"

He said that while lowering his head a little. In the same moment a victorious grin appeared on Yuiyui's face.

"Ara ara, so you two are finally a thing, huh? It pleases me to hear that, nicely done Megumin, as expected of my daughter. I wish you two the best of luck, if you know what I'm talking about…"

"Haha, well…"

Suddenly Kazuma felt someone's hand on his shoulder, he turned around to see Hyoizaburoo with a serious look on his face.

"So you finally decided to be serious about my daughter? Kazuma-san, I'd like to have a man-to-man talk with you… "

"Darling could you please… " Yuiyui already started casting a sleeping spell.

"No it's fine, let's go upstairs Hyoizaburoo-san, I actually wanted to speak with you about something."

Kazuma took his staff and walked away with Megumin's father. The sounds of a lively discussion could be heard from the floor above. After about 20 minutes they returned, Kazuma had a troubled expression and Hyoizaburoo, who had his arm around his shoulder, was wiping the tears from the corner of his eyes.

"Are you two okay, what happened…"

"Listen, I've decided that no matter what, I will support Kazuma-san from now on. You really found yourself a suitable partner, Megumin. I'll be rooting for you two."

He gave a thumb up while saying that, much to the confusion of the other three.

"What made you change your mind so much, dad? Before you looked like you were going to murder Kazuma… what were you two talking about?"

"Sorry but I can't tell you, this is a secret between two men, I won't spew it out even if you torture me."

Ok then, please take a sit both of you, I wanted to ask Kazuma-san about few things, especially those two beautiful staffs…"

Kazuma gulped loudly, he didn't want to get too much into this topic, fortunately for him, Megumin intervened.

"Well to be fair, we only wanted to give this cake to you and be on our way, after all we are still in a middle of a date…"

"Then what the hell are you still doing here?!" Yuiyui and Hyoizaburoo shouted in the same moment.

"Hurry up and go somewhere romantic for god's sake!" Yuiyui grabbed the two by the arm and dragged them outside the house.

At the doorframe Hyoizaburoo patted Kazuma's shoulder and rose his index finger into the air.

"Listen Kazuma, you don't have to believe in yourself, just believe in me, who believes in you. I know that I can count on you to take care of my daughter, so don't make me wait too long."

"Huh?" Kazuma and Megumin both tilted their heads in confusion.

"In other words, hurry up, because we can't wait to see our grandkids. Now have fun, both of you."

She slammed the door, leaving the couple shocked.

"I-I can understand my mother, but father as well…? Kazuma what the hell did you do to make him behave like that?"

Kazuma strengthened the grip he had on hid staff and looked at a certain point on it.

"N-nothing."

* * *

"Explosion!"

Megumin landed on the ground. After returning from the crimson demon village, she and Kazuma, having some time left on their hand, decided to go on an explosion trip to their usual spot. This time however…

"Explosion!"

The crimson demon archmage wasn't the only one casting the spell.

"Hehe, seems like you still have a long way to go, before you can master the spell Kazuma." Megumin said with the smug expression, while lying on the ground. The difference in their skill was as clear as day.

"Should you really be talking that way, after you used my mana for one spell already"

"Can't help it, we should use the available resources to their maximum potential, you are still a novice in this regard, so there is nothing weird with me doing that."

"You have the nerve to say that while lying like a dead log on the ground. Seems like I need to teach you a lesson…"

"D-don't tell me you are going to do something perverted to me…"

"Yeah, I could just teleport us to my room again, but I have a better plan in mind. "

After saying that, he put his staff on the ground and took out Vega and Altair.

"Darkness blacker than black and darker than dark…"

He poured almost all of his mana into the spell. Because the twin swords were far superior as a catalyst than their staffs, Kazuma was able to produce slightly more powerful outcome than Megumin.

"So how does it feel like to be bested by a novice mage?"

"I-it's not fair, you know I can't compare to you in terms of mana, and on top of that you even used those ridiculous weapons to cast it, you are awful Kazuma, I hate you!"

She started screaming like a child, Kazuma thought, that she would throw quite a tantrum if she was only able to move.

Kazuma rolled his eyes and picked her up bridal style, she averted her eyes away from him.

"Listen here Megumin, there is no way I could ever win with you when it comes to explosion. Your last one was about 220 points and this right here, that made me use almost three times the amount of mana you did, is merely 20 points higher. You truly are the best crimson demon archmage, no matter what others say about you."

She slowly moved her eyes and looked at him. A small blush appeared on her face.

"Y-you really mean it, Kazuma?"

"Without you, I would never be able to defeat Yathia, you are the one who made the milky way crossing possible. To me, there is no one in this whole world more awesome than you."

He picked her up higher and kissed her deeply. She closed her eyes, and using the little strength she had left, tried to return it.

I'm starting to like this place even more, that's what the two of them thought as they broke the kiss.

"Seems like it's time to get back to the guild. Ok now , I'll give you some mana and we can…"

"I want you to carry me."

"Huh? But there is no reason to do such a thing, I can just teleport us to…"

He stopped as he saw determination in her eyes, he could tell that she wouldn't back down no matter what.

"Ok, I got it, I got it. It's going to be a little troublesome with all this stuff, but I think I will manage.

"W-wait, you are going to carry me like that, I thought about a piggyback ride…"

"No chances, It's either like that, or I will teleport us to the guild hall this very second"

"B-but if people see us like this…"

"I don't care, and neither should you."

"O-ok then, let's go"

They picked their belongings and slowly went in the direction of Axel. However as they approached the city gates, the situation became a little too embarrassing for them and Kazuma ended up giving mana to Megumin. Still, holding hands together, they walked to the center of the town, where the adventurer's guild was located.

Judging from the sound that was coming from inside, the party was in the full swing again.

"Seems like they started without us, let's join them Kazuma!"

"Of course, let's get inside."

As they entered, the saw a large crowd of people surrounding something.

"Nature beauty!"

They didn't even had to guess what was going on there.

"Kazuma, Megumin, over here!"

The blonde crusader was waving at them. They approached the table that she was sitting at.

"Hello there Darkness, feeling better now?"

"Yes, that potion really helped, thank you about that Kazuma."

"And now for another trick…"

"Seems like Aqua is putting up quite a show"

"Yeah, you know how much she likes showing off during a party. Seems like it will take a while before she is done, so why don't we do something fun until then?"

As she said that, she put a certain magical device on the table.

"Huh, Darkness, is that..?"

"The magic lie detector, yes."

"Why did you bring it here? I don't have the best memories with it."

"I borrowed it from Sena. Thought that we might use it for some truth or dare games today. Imagine the embarrassment it could bring, I can't wait to…"

"I don't wanna do this"

„Me neither."

As Kazuma and Megumin were thinking of a way to get out of it, another blonde haired woman approached the table.

"Kazuma-san, Megumin-san I'm glad you made it."

"Hello again Luna-san."

"Here, help yourselves."

As she said that, she put a mug of beer for Kazuma and a plate full of sweets for Megumin.

"Thank you Luna-san, I see you managed to get this place in shape."

"Yes it was all thanks to the potions you brought us. I can't thank you enough for that Kazuma-san."

"Don't mention it, I…"

"So we meet again, my rival?"

Both Kazuma and Megumin turned around on their seats.

"Oh hello there Yunyun, and… Dust, long time no see!"

"Hello there Kazuma, or should I say, the new hero of Axel, I heard that you've dealt with another general."

"Yeah, to think of it, I haven't seen you in the city, when Yathia attacked, what were you up to?"

"Well, you see…"

Suddenly Kazuma could feel someone pulling on his sleeve.

"Huh, Megumin what do you…

"Kazuma look…" She pointed her finger at something, when Kazuma saw it, he froze.

"Oi oi oi, are you two… holding hands? W-what the fuck is going on?"

"You see Kazuma, Yunyun confessed to me some time ago, and I've always thought that she was kinda cute, so needless to say, we started going out."

Kazuma looked at the magic bell. It didn't make a sound, which meant that Dust wasn't lying.

Y-yes that is true, so how about another duel, Megumin. The first one to kiss their boyfriend wins.

As she said that, she turned around and made a quick kiss on Dust's cheek. He smirked, while Megumin still couldn't say a word.

"Looks like I win this time around."

Suddenly an evil grin appeared on Megumin's face.

"So I see that even you managed to find someone for yourself Yunyun. Still… "

She stood up and stroke her usual chuunibyou pose.

"Don't even compare your childish self to an already experienced woman like me."

"Huh? What do you mean by that Megumin?"

"Huhuhuhu, you see Yunyun…" Megumin snitched a mug of beer from Kazuma an put it high into the air.

"I already went all the way with Kazuma, he made me into a proper woman, so your your little games are way behind time."

"Wait wait wait, d-don't tell me, you two…"

"Yes that's right Yunyun, me and Kazuma… had sex the other day."

Everybody fell silent.

"Huh? It didn't ring…"

Darkness started poking the lie detector.

"What's going on, is it broken already, or…. no that's impossible."

As the silence stretched, Dust was the first to speak. He wrapped his arm around Kazuma's shoulder and started praising him.

"That's my man, right there. Good for you, now tell me what trick did you use, you see, Yunyun is a little hard to crack in this regard so I would like a little advice from senpa…"

He didn't have a chance to finish as Darkness grabbed him and threw him away through the window. Then she walked to Kazuma and squeezed his shoulder pretty tight.

"Hey Kazuma, could you explain this to us? At least please tell me, you were careful about, you know…"

"Y-yes, of course we used protection…"

Ding.

Darkness's jaw dropped to the floor, as did everyone's else present.

"Kazuma how irresponsible can you get, do you even know the consequences of what you two have done?!"

"D-don't worry, Megumin said that there is no way that she could get pregnant, oi isn't it right?!"

"Y-yes, the chances of that are close to zero…"

Ding.

"See, it's…. wait, what the hell, why did it ring…?

The whole table fell silent, again. Megumin lowered her head so much that her red as a tomato face was barely visible to anyone. Kazuma could feel darkness grip becoming stronger with each passing second.

"Megumin, what's the deal with that? Could you please enlighten me? "

"A-actually Kazuma, the truth is… there is a small chance, that we, you know…"

"How small?"

"A-about 10 percent…"

Everybody looked at the bell, it didn't ring. Darkness let go of Kazuma's shoulder and covered her face with her hands.

'Huh, I see." Kazuma nodded and a second later he flipped backward on the bench and slammed to the ground.

"I think you are overreacting a little. I'm of marriageable age and Kazuma already proved to me, that he is willing to take responsibility."

She rose the mug with beer to dring from it, but in an instant Darkness pulled it from her hand and slammed a glass of juice on the table.

"This is what you will be drinking today."

At the same time in a swift move Luna took the plate with sweets away from her.

"I'll bring you something more nutritious, than those worthless sweets, to eat."

"Now Kazuma, Dust, could please leave us, so we can have some serious conversation with this one? We'll talk with you later, hero of Axel."

As the atmosphere around the table was becoming more and more stiff, Yunyun, who was just standing there, staring blankly at this whole mess, suddenly smiled innocently and…

"Teleport."

"Huh? She teleported away? Huhuhu, seem like this is another victory for me."

Kazuma got up from the ground.

"Yeah, but it's a little weird, she didn't look embarrassed and defeated like she usually does at all, it's almost quite the opposite, just like if she came up with something… "

"Oh No! Impossible odds. Teleport"

Kazuma vanished, leaving shocked group behind. In the meantime Dust made his way back through the broken window.

"Oi Darkness, it wasn't very nice…"

His speech was cut short as suddenly Kazuma and Yunyun reappeared right on top of him and knocked him to the ground.

"Kazuma, what the hell is going on here, where did you two just go?"

"Yunyun I know you wanted to get back at Megumin, but please take me into consideration as well!"

"W-what are you talking about Kazuma-san? It's only reasonable, that they know too…"

"Kazuma don't tell me…"

"Yes Megumin, that's right, she was going to tell your parents about it. I managed to grab her, just as she was about to knock on the door."

"I didn't know you were capable of such an underhanded tactic Yunyun. Guess I have no choice, I'll handle this victory to you, so please keep quiet about it for the time being."

"Yes, I finally managed to defeat you, let's go and celebrate this Dust"

"Ok, could you please lend me a hand?"

She picked the former dragon knight from the ground, but just as they were about to leave. Luna grabbed Yunyun's arm.

"No, you are staying with us Yunyun-san. I have a feeling that it's not the best time for the crimson demon girl to be alone with the boy." Saying that she looked at Megumin and Kazuma.

"Yes, Luna-san is right, Kazuma, Dust please go away for now."

"Ok Kazuma, let's celebrate your victory over Yathia and the worst enemy of man, the horrible monster called virginity!"

What followed was the wildest party Axel has ever saw. Everybody was drinking, laughing, eating and having fun and it continued way past the morning.

In the next two weeks Kazuma's attention was focused solely on Megumin, until it became clear that she was indeed not pregnant. After that, they both returned to their usual way of spending time with the rest of their party, with a new addition of having sex whenever Darkness, and Aqua, who didn't have a clue about anything, weren't looking.

But the peace couldn't last forever, as one day, the letter, summoning Kazuma and his party to the capital came.

* * *

**Hello everyone, I hope you are having a good day. **

**As you can see, I've decided to make this chapter into an interlude between two parts of the story, and develop characters some more, before we get into more fighting. **

**I know that Aqua is still lacking in screentime, but she is going to play a bigger role later on, so bear with it for now. **

**With that being said, see you in chapter 7, where the endgame starts. **


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7: To kill a god.

The door to a massive room opened slowly. A loud voice of the herald echoed throughout the chamber.

"Introducing Kazuma Satou, the hero of Axel, and his companions, lady Dustiness Lalantina, Megumin and Aqua."

The four adventurers made their way towards a large throne, upon which a golden haired girl was sitting.

"Welcome to the capital Kazuma Satou-san. Thank you for answering my call."

"To summon me to the capital with a letter, you really must have missed me Iris."

The moment he spoke, every guard present drew his weapon.

"Bastard, you are speaking to the princess, show some respect…"

"Or what? You are going to attack me? I don't think you understand what you are getting into, boy."

As Kazuma said that, he put his right hand on top of Altair. The young sentinel who insulted him earlier started trembling.

"Silence. Put down your weapons, this man singlehandedly killed the strongest demon king's general, you stand no chance against him."

Hearing her words, the men started nervously looking around and slowly sheathed their swords.

"To think we would see a day, when people are afraid of Kazuma. The end of the world is near, huh?"

"Oi Aqua, what was that?"

"Nothing Kazuma-san, nothing. I didn't say anything, so please don't get angry…"

"We'll continue in private. Come with me, all of you."

Iris rose up and the four of them followed behind her. As soon as they walked out of the throne room, and the door behind them closed…

"Was this whole summoning thing necessary, Iris?"

"I'm sorry oni-chan, but there is a reason for all of this, you will see soon enough."

They entered a room with a large map placed upon an even larger table, around which a few people were sitting, among them…

"Hello there Kazuma, seems like you finally came. Oh, Aqua-sama is with you as well, maybe you'll reconsider joining me, my goddess?"

"It's that asshole with a magic sword, listen here you…"

"Hi Mitsurugi, I think you should stop asking Aqua to join you, or else she will let you taste her god blow again."

"Yeah, you're probably right."

They laughed as they shook hands. It looked like a reunion between two friends.

"Huh? Aren't you two supposed to be hating each other? What the hell happened?"

"I told you already Aqua, Mitsurugi helped me with my training, so we are on better terms right now."

"Seems like you've put my skills to a good use, hero of Axel."

"Yeah, they saved my ass more times than I can count, but we'll talk about that some other time. Let's focus on the topic at hand."

Kazuma turned his attention to the princess.

"So Iris, what's going on here? I believe you have some things to explain, starting off with this."

After everyone took a seat, he took out an envelope from his pocket, opened it and started reading aloud.

"Dear oni-chan, I need you to come to the capital as quickly as possible. We are going to celebrate your accomplishments of those last few months. Please don't show the content of this letter to anyone, I hope we see each other soon.  
PS, I know it sounds weird, but could you please make a little scene once you get inside the royal palace? Just don't do anything too crazy."

"I think you played that last part pretty well, Kazuma. Still, why would you ask for such a thing, on top of all the rest?"

Iris cleared her throat and started talking with a calm voice.

"The reason why I summoned you to the capital the way I did, is because I need your help oni-chan. With the defeat of Yathia, my father and brother were finally able to push back the demon king's forces. The fight is still as fierce as ever, but without their leaders – the generals, who you and your party defeated throughout the last year, we managed to get the upper hand. We think, that we are ready to finish it once and for all, and so, the plan to finally vanquish the demon king was born. Claire will explain the details."

The blonde beauty rose from her seat.

"The entire plan revolves around creating opportunity for you and your party, to directly attack the demon king. We are going to create a distraction and allow you to get close to him. Then with whatever means necessary, you will take him down."

A long silence followed her words, as she sat down again. As Kazuma realized, that this was really all she had to say…

"What? That is the entire plan?! What I just heard was "wait for a chance and somehow kill him". You can't be serious, please don't tell me you are serious…"

"Do we need anything more than that? With a goddess like me, we will manage to take down any enemy, so we should hurry and attack soon, so I can finally…"

"Aqua stop fooling around, this is not something we can just jump into and hope to work out somehow. We managed to get out with this way too many times already."

Megumin nodded, seems like she agreed with Kazuma. Meanwhile Darkness was still silent.

"So then…" before Iris had a chance to finish the sentence, Megumin asked:

"Before anything else I want to ask one question, how much time do we have to prepare?"

"W-we leave in a week. As we don't know how long the current status quo will last, we need to act fast…"

"So we only have a week to prepare to take down, possibly the strongest being in this world? That's fucking ridiculous if you ask me."

Think like that, coming from one of the crimson demons, who are the very definition of ridiculous, is really thought-provoking. But she is right, something is fishy with this setup. Kazuma decided to press on.

"It's been almost a month since we defeated Yathia. Why something like this comes up now of all times? You said, that the kingdom managed to push back the demon king forces. If that was the case, we should have gone for the demon king immediately after the battle with his daughter. If we've done that, then he would probably be dead by now. Instead we gave him a chance to regroup. From a tactical standpoint, this is as stupid as you can get. I have a feeling, that you are not telling us the whole truth."

"I believe your line of thought is correct Kazuma. I think I might know what is going on here. It's not about dealing a final strike while the situation favors us, it's the exact opposite, am I right, Iris?"

"Y-you see Megumin-san it's…"

"It's an act of desperation, because we are losing this war." Darkness suddenly interrupted Iris.

Both Cecily and Iris looked at darkness with a shock on their faces.

"You were going to tell them, Lalatina?!"

"Yes. Keeping it secret from them is not right, so I've decided to spill the beans if you kept on deceiving them. Although it seems like Megumin and Kazuma managed to see right through our farce."

The grim expressions of everyone present could only mean that Darkness really got out of line with that. What kind of game is being played there? Kazuma was becoming more and more disturbed by this scene.

"You knew about it from the beginning, Darkness?"

"Remember when I've said, that I'm going to gather allies using my father's influence? Well, what better allies than the royal family, who've been fighting the demon king for as long as I can remember. I got in touch with Cecily. One thing lead to another, and soon enough I learned everything."

"What do you mean by everything?"

"You see Kazuma, some time ago, the kingdom's agents managed to infiltrate the demon king's castle. Inside they stumbled across a weird device which was being assembled there. Its purpose was unknown back then, but sometime after Yathia was defeated, something matching the description the spies gave us appeared in the combat zone. It turned out to be a magical weapon. After being activated it created a beam of light, similar to the light of saber spell, which devastated our forces. Although it was ultimately destroyed, because of the losses, we had to fall back, giving the enemy a chance to push his offensive. Ever since that day, the situation kept on worsening, and just yesterday, one of the fortresses near the battle line was destroyed by some flash of light, as described by witnesses. I don't think I have to explain what that could mean.  
That is the reason we were summoned to the capital, Kazuma."

He couldn't believe what he just heard.

"Darkness, if you knew about all that, then why the hell did you allow us to sit on our asses for an entire month, while the situation on the battlefront was becoming more and more dire, with each passing day?"

"She didn't tell you, because I asked her not to."

"What, why would you do something like that Iris?!"

She turned her head away.

"Answer me Iris, there must be a reason for all that, right?"

"Do you really want to know? I don't think you will be pleased by that revelation Kazuma."

"I want to know, Iris, please tell me the truth."

"Are you sure oni-chan? Darkness is probably right…"

"Enough of that, just spit it out!"

"Then, oni-chan, allow me to explain..."

She inhaled deeply, the pause prolonged, she was probably looking for the right words.

"You see, the truth is that we were in a pretty bad spot for a long time now. Even though you managed to kill so many of the generals, our main forces had been locked in a stalemate. While we weren't able to advance, the enemy decided to go with a wicked scheme.  
The demon king forces were preparing to attack two vital places, the crimson demon village and Axel. If they managed to destroy both of them, then not only would they leave us without the help of the best mages in the kingdom, but also they would cripple our forces, as without the starting city, there would be no future adventurers to help our cause. The demon king's daughter herself commanded the operation. Because she harbored deep hatred for one particular adventurer, she came up with a twisted plan to make an example out of him and destroy the hope of those opposing her father."

She took another deep breath and continued.

"That's when a miracle happened. Seklas, the magic resistant bloodthrister, who was going to lead the attack on the crimson demon village, has been slain by someone. Moreover, his troops were annihilated without a single survivor. When the news about that reached the demon king's daughter, chaos erupted.  
Once Yathia learned that her most powerful servant fell in battle, she panicked. She didn't know who was responsible for defeating Seklas, but because he was resistant to almost all kind of magic it couldn't be anyone from the crimson demon village. Her guess was that some powerful swordmaster or such was the culprit behind that. She made a gamble. As it would be impossible for him or her to immediately get from the crimson demon's lands to the Axel, she decided to go with her plan sooner than later, to avoid confrontation with the mysterious somebody.  
Little did she know that the one who killed Seklas was none other than Kazuma Satou, the very adventurer she was after. Unknowingly, she played herself and ended up fighting you and being mercilessly killed, much to the surprise to pretty much everyone in the kingdom.  
Because of all that, we decided to keep you in the dark, so that the public knew, that the man, who killed the strongest general, is sitting in Axel celebrating his victory, and not doing anything."

That doesn't make any sense, what is Iris getting at?

"I don't understand…"

"Look at this, the man who just obliterated Yathia is sitting in his home city and playing around. If the demon king was such a big deal, he couldn't possibly be doing that. If he was a real threat, then this whole Kazuma Satou guy would be deployed to the battlefront to deal with him. So we have nothing to worry about and can continue on with our daily lives.  
That's what the people around the kingdom are thinking right now. "

What? This is a line of thought of someone more than stupid, no way that is the case…

"It's exactly as you said Aqua-san. We did it in order to keep the citizens from panicking."

Is everyone in this world dumb as a brick? Or is it just that the common sense wasn't developed here yet?

"Even if you wanted to keep the public in check, and don't let the morale drop , why didn't you just make some public statement, that I'm going to kill the demon king in a week… Wait a second, don't tell me that…"

"Yes, that is exactly what was going to happen today. That's also why I asked you to stir things up a little. With this, the news about your arrival in the capital are going to spread even faster, which will get us much more attention from the common folk."

"So with your back against the wall you finally turned to me, may I ask why?"

Iris lowered her head.

"Despite the fact that Kazuma killed Yathia and spoiled the demon king's plan, you still don't believe in him enough, to just ask for help the normal way, so instead you came up with this whole thing.

Hearing Megumin's words Iris lowered her head even more. Kazuma was pretty pissed off for being treated like that. Then Claire decided to stir things up even more.

"It wasn't Iris-sama who was reluctant to act, it was the decision of the king and first prince Jatis, to keep you away from it all."

Hearing her words Iris immediately rose her head. The shadow of disbelief could be seen on her face. Seems like she wasn't expecting Claire to drop something like that.

"Claire! You said that you will keep quiet about it…"

"I'm sorry Iris-sama, but I agree with what Darkness said earlier. Kazuma should know all there is to it."

So those two were pulling strings behind the scenes, huh? Good to know, I'll make sure to repay them in the future, as of now…

"Forgive me oni-chan, I understand that you are probably pretty mad about…"

"Actually I'm more sad, than engry. To think that even after all that happened, you still wouldn't believe in me and decide it was better off to keep me off in the dark and have me act like a mascot of your success. Even if your father and brother were against it, you could have come up with some method to let me know if you really wanted to. I'm disappointed, that you still see me as a lazy bastard, and yet still ask me to do something, when everything goes to shit. I'm tired of all this."

"Wait, Kazuma you couldn't possibly ru…"

Aqua words were interrupted by Kazuma, who flicked her forehead.

"Ouch, what was that for, you shit-NEET?!"

"Do you really think, I'll let them get away with the way they treated me? Seems like I have something to prove here."

A glimmer of hope appeared on the faces of everyone present in the room.

"Does this mean that…"

"I want all the information you have about the demon king. All the intel you've gathered throughout the years."

Cecily quickly rose from her seat.

"I'll gather all reports about him, that we have in the royal palace. Please wait here!"

After a few hours of reading and discussion, Kazuma, not pleased with what he had learned, sighted loudly.

"No matter how you look at it, currently we have nothing that we can use to ensure our victory"

His words made the whole room fall silent. After a while, Aqua was the first one to speak.

"So what are we going to do, Kazuma?"

"I'm afraid, that even with my current power level, defeating somebody like that is out of the question. Therefore, there is only one think we can do…

"I think I like where this is going…" Megumin's eyes started shining.

"Yeah Megumin, I'm going to grind levels even more, and to do that, there is only one place we can go right now…"

* * *

"Ok, are you ready everyone?"

"Let's do it Wiz."

"Please be careful out there. Teleport."

Kazuma and the rest were fully packed with manatite stars and level resetting potions. The reason for that was that they were finally going to enter the place Wiz spoke about when Kazuma first learned about the side effects of the level resetting potion. Their destination was world's most dangerous dungeon, Tomb of the Shattered God. This place was an equivalent of the end game content, so challenging, that only the strongest and most determined among adventurers could prevail here. Even a hundred years after its discovery it still remained unconquered. This was going to be the ultimate challenge for Kazuma and his party…

"Light of Saber." The giant minotaur fell to the ground.

Or not. As for now, they were able to steamroll their way through 5 of the 10 floors that the dungeon consisted of, and they were yet to find anything that wouldn't be instantly killed by Kazuma. Not even the bosses stood a chance against them.

As they were making their way through the sixth floor, they spotted a large crowd of high level undead heading in their direction.

"Turn unde…"

Aqua rushed forward to intercept them, but..

"Light of saber"

The yellow plasma edge hit a large crowd of zombies and slew them all in an instant.

"Why are you stealing all the kills, you shit-neet, isn't this whole thing meant for us to increase our levels?!"

Aqua eventually lost it. Kazuma felt like the justice has been served.

"Oh it feels so fucking good to finally be the one at the giving end. Yeah, how do you like that Aqua? To be the one getting nothing at all, while one person accumulates all exp? Terrible isn't it? That's how I've been feeling the entire time while adventuring with you. Know my pain, you useless goddess."

"I can't take it anymore!"

Aqua wasn't the only one feeling frustrated by the situation. Because they were in the dungeon, Megumin was forbidden from using explosion, needless to say, she didn't like that.

Strike forth Ex.."

She was going to use the spell she was holding back for so long, but before she could finish it…

"Mana sap."

Kazuma used one of the spells that he learned in the crimson demon village. It wasn't that useful as any archamge could overcome the little hinderance that it created…

"plosion!"

But for Megumin, whose mana reserves were pretty low, it was a totally different story. It didn't matter, that she was using her manatite staff, that little poke was more than enough to throw her off balance and interrupt the channeling.

"Kazuma I hate you, how can you make me watch you cast all those incredible spells, and not let me use mine at all!"

"Kazuma you are a monster, to make those two suffer that much, while I'm getting totally ignored. I demand you to do something violent with my flesh…!"

"Calm down you eroness, I wouldn't touch you with a stick, so don't approach me with that selfish, muscled body of yours."

"Such a harsh treatment…"

Kazuma ignored Darkness and turned his attention back to Megumin.

"Also I told you Megumin, that you are only allowed to use milky way crossing here…"

"That's not fun at all. True, the feeling of mana flowing though my is just as potent, but without the flames and the shockwave it's not the same."

"You'll have to bear with it, currently it's the most powerful weapon in our arsenal, so mastering it takes the highest priority."

"But it doesn't give me the exp, you are just taking everything for yourself! I refuse to use it!"

She started kicking the ground in anger.

"Seems like I don't have a choice. Ok then, I promise that I'll let you kill the final boss with the explosion so…"

"Ok I agree."

That was fucking fast. The smug smile on Megumin's face meant she got exactly what she wanted.

"What about me, Kazuma?! You can't favor Megumin like that!"

"Huhuhu, you see Aqua, it's because of my womanly charms that I'm able to…"

"If you keep using the strengthening buffs on me, I'll allow you to get rid of some undead from time to time…"

Megumin turned around surprised.

"Draconic strength. Blessing. Enhance Defense. Is that enough Kazuma?"

"Ok then, you can purify the next wave…"

"Kazuma what about me?!" Darkness moved right into his face.

"I don't care, just run ahead and tank enemies or something…"

"Yes! Let's go Aqua." She grabbed blue girl's hand and they both sprinted into the direction of another group of undeads.

Kazuma looked at the crimson demon girl. The look she had on her face could only mean that she was incredibly offended that she wasn't the only one getting the special treatment. Kazuma rolled his eyes.

"Sphere of silence."

This was an intermediate magic spell, that blocked any sound created by the user and the others in a small radius around. He moved closer to Megumin and whispered into her ear.

"You can kill as many bosses as you want, this is a really sturdy dungeon it won't collapse no matter what you do. Just be careful not to blow it into anyone's face."

"O-of course I'd never endanger anyone, you dummy."

Not endanger anyone? I've lost count of how many times I've almost died from the way you recklessly used that spell. Still…

Making sure that Darkness and Aqua are not looking at them, Kazuma gave Megumin a quick kiss on the cheek.

She smiled and blushed a little. With everyone finally contented, they moved forward.

* * *

Soon enough they approached the final enemy of the sixth floor. It was a giant undead orc, who had some weird piercing on his face. He was constantly screaming something about axes and when Megumin finally blew him to pieces, two letters "JD" appeared on the ground, and the door to the next floor opened.

They continued their quest and ventured deeper into the halls. On the seventh floor, they encountered a weird creature, it was something like a cross between a mole and caterpillar, but a size of a barn. It proved to be really annoying to deal with as it was constantly burrowing in the ground and because of its armored back it could only be attacked from the front. After 10 minutes of jumping around it with unrelenting assault, Kazuma finally had enough and ordered Megumin to kill it with explosion, which she gladly did.

Taking a little break after that, they entered the eight floor.

"Megumin we'll kill the next boss with milky way crossing."

"I'm fine with that, but isn't it too early do decide on that tactic? After all, we don't know what we'll be dealing with."

"Trust me, we'll manage."

"If you say so…."

She is right, but we have to do it. As it stands right now, the only thing we got from this entire dungeon is exp. I thought that we could find ourselves something to help us deal with the demon king, but we've yet to do it. At the very least we have to strengthen our strongest attack and the only way to do it is to use it more often.

They ended up using milky way crossing on the Rakkhat, the boss of the eight floor. It was a sentient gargoyle, and because of its magical resistance it was the only way to defeat him.

All and all, enemies like that proved to be the hardes to deal with, as Kazuma and his party had trouble dealing with enemies that had both high resistance to magic and tough armor or skin.

At least that was the case until Kazuma finally learned vulnerability, the spell that lowered the defensive stats of the enemy it's been casted on. It was a low level curse, but because of his mana pull, Kazuma could spam it like crazy, effectively lowering enemy's resistance almost to zero.

On the ninth floor, that decision turned to be crucial, as they entered the green, very out of place, region.

Kazuma looked at the sign with the name on it.

"Spirit Vale…  
How the fuck can something so deep underground be called vale? It doesn't make any sense. That being said, the second word seems very much on point…"

He looked around at Aqua who was constantly exorcising a steady crowd of ghost. Either her aura somehow grew stronger, or the those lost souls were just attracted to her that much, because their numbers weren't dropping at all in spite of blue haired arch priestess best efforts to guide them to the afterlife.

"Just how many more of them are there!"

"Be grateful that they are not aggressive, Aqua. If they tried to attack us, we would be easily overrun."

"But what are we going to do about them, Kazuma? True if we tried to get rid of them by force, then considering those numbers…"

Darkness started breathing heavily. It was obvious what was going on in her head. Suddenly one of the ghost approached Kazuma.

"Beware the Gorseval."

"Gorseval? Is that the name of the boss here?"

Spirit nodded a little.

"Is it because of him, that you are trapped here?"

Another nod.

"Then it's decided."

"Do you have a plan Kazuma?"

"Yes, I believe that Darkness is right, we can't attack them or we are screwed. Let's use this situation to our advantage. Since they are peaceful, we'll just move forward, look seems like they are all coming from this direction."

"Wait Kazuma you can't possibly…"

"It's your own fault that they are attracted to you. Stand back and wait for us here. Something tells me, than if we deal with this whole Gorseval, they will go away. Megumin, Darkness, let's go!"

The trio made their way forward. Soon enough they entered a spacious, circular room with a weird creature sleeping in the middle.

"That's probably him. Let's…"

"Explosion!"

Without a second of hesitation, Megumin unleashed explosion upon the amalgamated being.

"Could you please wait a little before you do something like that?!"

"What's your problem Kazuma? It's better to attack him off guard…"

She didn't even had a chance to finish as a wave of energy dispersed the flames created by the crimson demon girl's magic.

"See?! "

"I've done my part, now Kazuma it's your turn do deal with him."

"Your tough act contradicts a little with a fact that you are frantically hiding behind Darkness, you know…" On the other hand, it seems like like he took some damage. Very well then, I shall get rid of him myself."

He took out Vega and Altair and used his usual combo.

"Impossible odds. Light of saber. Phase traversal."

Kazuma engaged the enemy, once close enough…

"Unrelenting assault."

With the first hit, he cut off one of Gorseval's arms.

This should be pretty easy, but why do I have a bad feeling about this…

Suddenly the creature lunched an attack on him. Instead of just ignoring it, Kazuma decided to guard himself with the swords. He was right, to trust his intuition, as gorseval's claws made contact with manatite blades. Kazuma was shocked as he felt his arm being cut in the process, he immediately teleported away to Megumin and Darkness.

"Fucking shit, he attacked me during the unrelenting assault! For a moment I thought that my heart would jump out from my chest, that was scary…"

"That what you get from relying on that skill all the times."

"You are the last person who can scold me for that, Megumin."

"So what are we going to do with him, Kazuma?

Darkness pointed at the badly injured Gorseval, who was charging at them.

"No fucking way I'm getting close to this thing again. Megumin start chanting explosion. Darkness intercept him."

While two girls did what he told…

"Vulnerability!"

Kazuma started casting the spell over and over again. He did it about twenty times, it was probably an overkill but he didn't care. Once the final one landed on Gorseval…

"Phase traversal." Kazuma teleported to the boss but he didn't intent to attack him, instead he grabbed Darkness and…

"Teleport"

Teleported them away to Megumin, who was waiting to pull a trigger on her end.

"Now Megumin!"

"Strike forth. Explosion!"

This time around Gorseval didn't get away with just a minor injuries. All that was left of him, was a smoldering pile of blood and gore. Kazuma gave a thumb up to Megumin.

"Nice explosion."

She responded in kind, smiling from ear to ear.

* * *

With the death of the boss, the ghosts disappeared and Aqua quickly caught up to them. About an hour later, after some minor fights with the trash mobs, they finally reached their final destination.

"So this should be the final boss room, huh?"

The large chamber was almost empty, with an exception of a sole sarcophagus right in the center of it.

"Let's see what's inside" Megumin and Aqua jumped forward but were grabbed by Kazuma almost instantly.

"Wait a second you morons. This looks like the most obvious trap ever. Detect trap. Treasure detection. Enemy detection."

He activated all the skills he had, but couldn't fell anything wrong about the sarcophagus.

"Ok seems like it's not trapped. Still, Darkness I want you to open it…"

"Ohhh, what if an enemy jumps right off from it and attacks me. Or if I'm pulled inside only to be mercilessly…"

"Shut up eroness."

"Your harsh words only add to my excitement…"

Darkness pushed the lid off, to reveal the single, blonde haired individual lying inside.

"What the hell. Is is a… vampire? Is he regenerating inside, or what…"

Hearing his voice, the person inside slowly opened his eyes.

"Just five more minutes… Is it 1358 yet?"

"No." Megumin answered the weird question.

"Then fuck off." He closed the cover of this sarcophagus leaving the party astonished with what just happened.

"Maybe we shouldn't bother him…"

Before he could finish the sentence Aqua kicked off the lid with an impressive force.

"Get up you sorry excuse for a boss and prepare to be exorcised!"

The vampire opened his eyes again and slowly sat up. Kazuma and the rest backed off a little.

"Huh? So you want to die here? Very well, I, Bio Drando, shall quickly get rid of you, little adventurers."

He disappeared in a mist. Feeling something bad coming, Kazuma teleported them away. Turns out it was a good decision as just a second later Bio came crushing down at the place they were just standing at.

"Why do you keep triggering enemies on us like that, you toilet goddess?!"

"As a goddess I can't let some filthy undead sleep undisturbed, now…"

Kazuma didn't let her finish in one swift move he grabbed Aqua and threw her at Bio.

"If you hate undead so much, then deal with him yourself!"

"Kazuma what the hell are you doing?!"

"Shut up and watch Darkness" He said as he unsheathed Vega and Altair.

Bio stopped dead in his tracks as the screaming priestess flew his way.

"God Blow!" Aqua landed a powerful punch on a face of the surprised vampire.

The power of the strike send him flying. Then…

"Kocchi wo miro!"

While still midair he turned his head only to notice Kazuma directly behind him. The adventurer launched an attack, almost slicing Bio in half. Using the momentum to his advantage, he kicked him into the wall. Bio's body started breaking down.

"Your next line is: NANI this can't be happening!"

"NANI, this can't be happening…"

"Told you so…"

"But this is only the beginning! I shall show you the true meaning of power!"

Saying that, he took out a mask and a knife from his pocket.

"Gaze upon this, mere mortals!"

He placed the mask on his face and slit his wrist open with a dagger. As soon as the drops of blood touched the mask, few spikes shoot out from the back of it and pierced his head. In an instant his body grew almost twice in size, as he struck a menacing pose.

Looks like he has a second form. Surely he looks stronger, but it doesn't matter. When you give this much time to your opponent during the combat…

"Explosion!"

The massive outburst of flames enveloped the vampire.

Something like that is going to happen.

Darkness jumped before them, shielding the rest of the party from the heat wave with her own body. She looked as pleased as usual while doing so.

"Seems like this is the end. Megumin please refrain from using silent explosion, I knew this was coming but…"

"Get this beta shit off me!" Bio emerged from the flames. He screamed like a madman while ripping off his cloak to reveal a tank top beneath.

Ooops I rose a flag. So not two but three phases huh? Also what's up with those muscles, this guy is alpha as fuck…

"Wryyyyyy!"

He charged forward with an incredible speed. In response to that…

"Vulnerability. Teleport."

Kazuma started jumping around him while constantly casting the resistance lowering curse on him. Although each time he repeated it, Bio was getting closer and closer to him.

Shit if this continues for too long, he will actually get me. Time to finish you off.

"Light of saber!"

The yellow plasma hit the vampire in the leg, severing it from the rest of his body.

"Got you."

Bio looked at his wound.

"Tis but a scratch."

"A scratch? Your leg's off."

"No it isn't."

"Well what's that then?" Kazuma pointed at the limb laying on the ground.

"I've had worse, now prepare for death!"

He charged again, this time however much slower than before. Kazuma empowered his twin swords with light of saber and with unrelenting assault, cut off the remaining leg as well as the arms of the vampire.

The limbless body fell to the ground.

"Al right, we'll call it a draw"

With a quick slash Kazuma decapitated Bio.

* * *

"Shit, nothing there as well."

After they killed the final boss, effectively clearing the whole dungeon, it was time for the favorite part of any adventurer – looting. But…

"Look for some hidden passages, there must be something here, I refuse to believe that that chest was all we got!"

Much to their displeasure, the reward they got from their fight with Bio was really disappointing.

Apart from the exp, there was nothing we got from any of the bosses on the previous floors. No secret treasures either. I've been using treasure detection over and over again, and Aqua didn't feel any illusions on the way, I thought that the final will give us a heck of a reward, instead…

"A fucking magic halberd, that none of us can use, some deldrimor ore and a mere 100 million eris is all we got?! Don't mess with me. Aqua, start casting dispels all over this room, I want my treasure!"

"Leave that to me!"

The two of them continued their search for some clues, in the meantime…

"When are you two going to give it a rest? It's clear that…"

"Leave them be Darkness, it's pointless to reason with them now. Let's focus on this."

Megumin and Darkness turned their attention back to the thing that appeared right after Kazuma slain Bio. It was a weird floating orb of unknown purpose. Kazuma forbade them from meddling with it, but he didn't say anything about just looking at it. Suddenly Megumin noticed something…

"Look, there is something written here."

"Huh?"

Seems like that was enough to get Kazuma away from his frantic search.

"Let me see Megumin… Japanese? What the hell, why is something like that here?"

"Kazuma can you read it?"

"Yeah."

"So what does it say? What's this weird floating orb?"

"It's a challenge mote. It says that after activating it we will be… transported, to a harder version of this dungeon? This is weird."

This is like a hard mode you could find in most of the popular MMO's. But activating it from the inside, after clearing the whole thing? That was unusual to say the least.

"So what are we going to do with it?"

Good question. Hard modes usually give much better rewards than the normal stuff, but they are often quite unfair and require a specific team comp in order to be successful with them. For now they should probably let it be.

"For now don't mess with it. We'll ask Wiz about it and then maybe we'll come bac…"

Before he could finish, they were teleported somewhere.

"What the fuck?! What just happened."

Somebody started whistling.

Kazuma slowly turned around to face the only person who could be responsible for that.

"Aqua, could you explain to me what you just did?"

"You know, we didn't get anything from clearing the normal difficulty dungeon, so it could only means that all the good stuff is in this challenge mode."

"So you know what we can expect here, what kind of bosses, how do they behave and what's the best way to kill them?"

"No, but…"

"Then, see ya Aqua."

Kazuma smiled innocently as he pulled Megumin and Darkness away from the useless goddess.

"… KAZUMA-SAN PLEASE DON'T…"

"Teleport."

He vanished. Aqua landed on her bum and started crying like a baby.

"How could you do something like that to me?! Kazuma! Kazuma!"

"Yes I'm Kazuma."

"Huh?..."

In her tantrum Aqua didn't notice that Kazuma returned with the girls.

"Kazuma you are really cruel, to think you would do something like this to Aqua."

"She got it coming for not thinking this through. On the other hand…"

Kazuma sighted with relief. He lost all the markings he created in the dungeon, but at the very least they were still able to escape with the teleport, so the situation wasn't that dire. Still…

He looked around at the scenery around them. It was the first floor of the tomb of the shattered god, but something was different. Something was… not right.

He started feeling funny for some reason.

"Aqua…"

Staggering on his feet, he wanted to call to Aqua, but the words got stuck in his throat. Suddenly all strength left him, as he collapsed to the ground. He closed his eyes for a second, and when he opened them again, the scenery changed.

Before him was a weird… thing. It was enormous and gave out a feeling of power so great that it was beyond human understanding. There were cables everywhere and they seemed to led to a single point on top of the construction, where a giant skeleton was.

"It looks like something from the future I wonder what's this thing supposed to do…"

"Come closer, Kazuma Satou, don't be afraid."

Surprised by the sudden voice, He looked around for the source of it. His eyes landed on the skeleton.

"I-impossible, the voice that I'm hearing, is it you?"

"Yes, you are right. I was me who called you here, hero Kazuma Satou."

"Huh, you… talk. And you know my name, how?

"I've been looking at your world for quite some time now. I've seen it being consumed by the ruinous powers, like many words before it. "

"Ruinous powers? What are you talking about?"

"The source of all destruction can be tracked back to the everlasting thread of chaos. True, it's not how it's called in your world or how it's been called in the previous one…"

"What?! You know I'm from japan… how the hell is that possible?"

"I'd like to answer your question, but we don't have time for it. There is something important you need to know."

"O-ok." Kazuma could only stutter this single word. The bizarre situation he suddenly found himself in was a little too much for him to handle.

"Unfortunately your world is beyond my reach, but I still want to help preserve the humankind there. You are currently the only hope that world has, so know this, you can't falter. You must continue the path you are currently on. If you do that, you'll find the answer you are looking for."

The answer? Does he mean the weapon against the demon king? I don't understand…

"Struggle, fight, prevail, and in the moment of your greatest challenge, in the moment of despair, remember those that are important to you, as they'll be the ones to save your heart before it's destroyed forever."

"I don't understand…"

"You will. I see that you will. You've always made it, when you've put your back into something. Now go, they are waiting for you."

"Wait let me ask you…"

"Kazuma wake up!"

Suddenly he came to his senses. The first think he saw were the crimson eyes looking deep into his own. He moved his gaze a little, there was Aqua currently casting some healing spells on and Darkness with an uneasy expression on her face. But something was weird. Despite the fact that he was laying on the cold ground, his head was resting on something warm. He realized what was going on.

"Are you all right Kazuma? Does your head hurt, or is there something else not quite right?

"I'm fine, but I don't mind staying like that for a while longer."

His words were totally justified, after all…

"See, I told you that it was a bad idea Megumin. I don't understand why would you do something like that for this pervert…"

No sane man would want to get up, while his girlfriend was giving him a lap pillow.

"So, what the hell happened?"

"You've been mumbling something about chaos and some golden palace for quite some time now. It's probably because of those shrooms there."

Megumin pointed at the few massive fungi . They weren't there the first time they entered.

"Hallucinations, huh? Then why was I the only one affected by them?"

"Maybe it has something to do with the fact that you used magic here? That would be my guess, but who knows."

That, or those weren't hallucinations at all. Well, I'll deal with it later, for now…

Kazuma reluctantly got up. It was time to continue their endeavors.

* * *

Once again they ventured into the tomb of the shattered god. Because they knew the layout of each floor, they were able to navigate them with ease and reach each boss much faster than before. On the other hand, the bosses themselves were much more troublesome to deal with.

Faster, stronger, tougher. Although their behavior didn't change much, they themselves became more twisted and horrifying, yet still similar to their previous form. This however changed drastically once the party entered the spirit vale for the second time.

"What the hell is going on here?"

Just like before spirit vale was filled with ghosts, but this time…

"They are… crying? All of them? Why?"

The weeps of the restless spirits were the only sound that could be heard. It was so loud that they had trouble thinking straight.

"Let's go to the boss room, quickly, I have a bad feeling about this!"

The party rushed forward, but as soon as they entered Gorseval's chamber…

"Die!"

Something charged straight at them Kazuma was barely able to teleport them away. Then…

"Wind fist!"

Using this advanced magic spell, Kazuma sent the being flying. When Aqua saw what was that, she froze in terror.

"T-this is Gorseval?"

Previously Aqua missed the fight with him, so she didn't know how he looked like, but this being…

"N-no it's not him it can't be…"

It didn't look like the boss of the ninth floor at all. This right here was a giant crocodile with many eyes covering its skin. Because Aqua still had trouble dealing with reptiles, she hid behind Darkness.

"Whether it's Gorseval or not, it doesn't matter, this creature want's us dead, so we have to retaliate."

"Darkness is right, to get to the final floor we have to kill it, so…"

"If you think you can get past me and hinder with my master's plans, then you are deeply mistaken!"

Oh, it can talk, that's interesting. But master and what plans is it talking about?

"Who the hell do you serve, monster?"

"It doesn't matter, you'll be dead soon, so that knowledge won't serve you anything!"

"Getting full of ourselves, are we? Seems like it's time to teach you a lesson. Now!"

"Explosion!"

Not wasting any time, Megumin unleashed the spell. The creature has been blown to pieces.

"Serves you right, stupid lizard, this was way easier than I expected, no chance it could survive that!"

"Oi Aqua don't raise flags like that…"

"You'll pay for that!"

The monster emerged from the flames.

"How… I see, it's regenerating."

From the looks of it, this being had impressive regenerative abilities, in a few seconds it was able to restore almost all of its lost tissue.

"Light of saber!"

Kazuma didn't give it a chance to fully regenerate, as he started hitting it with everything he had. Even though he cut it to pieces countless times, it wasn't enough to kill it.

"Shit, we need more firepower. Aqua, Darkness keep this thing occupied for a moment, I need to think."

"Kazuma please, I don't want to get close to…"

"Just keep healing me Aqua, I'll hold him off!"

As Darkness and Aqua went off, Megumin approached Kazuma.

"Kazuma, we'll probably need to retreat from here."

"I know right. But…"

"If you don't have anything to stop its regeneration, then we can't win. From what I see, it can restore itself from any part of its body. It doesn't matter what it is, as long as we don't completely annihilate him, we can't win."

"That's it, we just need to overpower this ability…"

Her eyes widened as she realized what he was getting at.

"You mean…"

"Your explosions, Can you chain cast them?"

"Technically yes, but that would require a lot more mana…"

"I'll take care of that."

Kazuma took out a few manatite stars from his pocket. Most of their reserves were still in a box, that Megumin was carrying, but after they activated the challenge mode, Kazuma took a few as a emergency reserves if for some reason he would be unable to get them from the crimson demon girl.

I hate the idea of using them right now, but the time is of the essence. Good thing I also took this with me.

He reached his hand behind his back, where he was carrying his staff.

"Start channeling, darkness and Aqua are having a hard time with this thing."

"What are you going to do Kazuma?"

"Cast some myself of course. We need all firepower we could get or else he will just regenerate again."

"Ok then, let's do it."

They both started casting explosion on their own end.

Barely able to hold the spell, he teleported to Aqua and Darkness, and returned. Once they were a safe distance away…

"Now! Let's give him hell!"

"Strike forth explosion!" They both unleashed the barrage of explosions on the reptile. Kazuma kept on releasing mana from the stars and transferring it to Megumin, using the connected staffs. He didn't need to draw it as he was the one giving mana, so it only needed to be somewhere close to him. Because of that he could keep on using Vega and Altair and was able to stay on par with Megumin.

Darkness and Aqua watched in amazement as the duo unleashed the Armageddon. After two minutes of constant bombardment, the creature finally stopped regenerating. After four,its body started crumbling. And after five, it was finally destroyed.

Kazuma and Megumin were both breathing heavily.

"Let's make a little break and then…"

He didn't have a chance to finish the sentence, as suddenly a portal appeared beneath them and they were transported somewhere.

"What the hell?!"

They heard the sound of clapping, putting their guard up, they turned to the source of the sound.

"Congratulations on defeating my servant, heroes. As a reward for that, I've decided to hasten our meeting."

The one saying that was a seemingly ordinary man. Seeing him, Aqua's face went pale.

"Who the hell are you?!" The other three shouted in the same time.

"My name has been lost in time. Now they only call me the forgotten, the shattered god, and the closest to the truth, the…

"Scarlet King!"

"I'm not surprised you know that, blue haired priestess. It's obvious as you are one of them…"

"Impossible…" Megumin's eyes filled with terror as Kazuma turned around to Aqua.

"Aqua you know about this guy?"

"There is no mistake about it. This individual is the fallen elder god. As his other names suggest, eons ago he had been broken into pieces and sealed in various locations on this planet."

"He's a fucking god?! Aqua we are getting out of here this very second…"

"We can't Kazuma."

"What do you mean by that Megumin? Don't tell me you want to kill him to earn some fucking title or other bullshit thing…"

"That's only a part of the reason. If he is the real deal, then in terms of the thread he poses to mankind, he's second only to the demon king. We can't let him be or else we will have two world threatening calamities to deal with instead of just one."

"Is it even possible do defeat him in the first place?"

"I think we have a chance, he is not at his full power, so we should be able to defeat him. I believe that it's just a fragment that somehow regained consciousness."

"What makes you so certain about it?"

"We are still breathing. If he was complete, we'd be dead by now."

"Having a moment of doubt, puny human? You can run away if you want. Soon, I'll regain my lost power and then the whole world will be mine!"

Ok, it's decided then.

"Plan A, let's go!"

"Explosion!"

Without even a second of hesitation Megumin attacked. The rest quickly went into the standard formation with Darkness on the frontline, Kazuma beside Megumin and Aqua on the rear.

Good, now let's wait to see…

"You think your magic can harm me? Know your place you mongrels!"

The fires around the scarlet king had been dispersed. For a moment a faint blue bubble could be seen around him.

Shit, we have to switch tactic already.

"Create greater artifact. Pharus."

The fallen god conjured a glowing longbow.

"We're switching off to plan B. Vulnerability!"

Kazuma started throwing spells at the enemy. They all connected, but something felt slightly off.

In the same time their opponent shot a few times aiming at Kazuma, but Darkness managed to reflect all of them.

"Good. Now let's see how you deal with that, crusader. Caladbolg II"

The weird looking thing appeared in the hand of the scarlet king. It looked somewhat like a sword but when he started drawing it from a bow it changed shape to form a giant arrow.

I have a bad feeling about it.

"Darkness take this. Conjure earth shield!"

She quickly grabbed the object Kazuma created and faced toward the enemy.

"Interesting, let's see if you are able to block it!"

Their adversary released the arrow, with incredible speed it cut through the air and made contact with the conjured shield. Although it was able to block the attack, it crumbled, creating a large cloud of dust.

Here's our chance.

"Light refraction. Sphere of silence."

After concealing the entire party…

"Quickly, let's change our position."

They run to the side. On the way Kazuma set many teleport markers, thinking that they could prove useful in the future.

"So now you are hiding like cockroaches? You can struggle all you want, no one can defeat me!"

Don't get so full of yourself you chucklefuck.

"Megumin precast another explosion."

"Roger. What are you going to do?"

"I'll attack him with milky way crossing…"

"Wait, I can't do both of those things…"

"I'll use the milky way crossing myself, concentrate on the explosion."

"Y-yourself?! Will you be able to pull it off?"

"I think I understand how to do it."

Till now, they used this attack a total of 5 times. Although Kazuma never tried doing it completely on his own, he came to understand the basic principle in shaping the explosion.

I've already learned many spells, but not a single one of them can compare to the explosion. It's almost like it has a life of its own, no matter how ridiculous it sounds. It takes a great deal of concentration and expertise to change its change so much to envelop it around the sword. Megumin was able to pull it off, but she is a genius among the most skilled group of mages in the world, and she has spent a great portion of her life mastering it, while I, all average across the board, have started using it a little more than month ago. I'll have make up for that difference with a sheer force of will.

"Darkness keep on protecting us. Aqua I could use some buffs."

"Peak performance! Draconic might! Precision!"

Aqua started casting spells like crazy. Never before has Kazuma felt such a surge of power in his body. Not wasting any time both him and Megumin began chanting.

"Darkness blacker than black and darker than dark…"

The crimson king crossed his arm, he didn't do anything to interrupt them. Was it because he wasn't able to detect them, or because he simply didn't care, no one could tell.

"This could very well be a trap, but we don't have much choice, I'm going in first. Impossible odds! Phase traversal!"

In a blink of an eye he closed the distance between him and his opponent.

"So you finally decided to attack? Show me what you are capable of."

I didn't drop off any invisibility I've used, so he's been looking down on us the entire time? I'll show this bastard…

"Unrelenting assault!"

Kazuma gave his all. With Aqua's magic strengthening him, he unleashed a twelve hit combo upon the scarlet king. Twelve times he attacked with all his might, and twelve times…

"I refuse to believe it…"

his blades simply slid off the body of his adversary.

After the final hit, he teleported back to Megumin, who unleashed the explosion upon their enemy. Although it was one of the most powerful ones she casted so far, Kazuma already knew it wouldn't be enough.

Megumin's eyes shoot into orbit when the flames of her spell were dispersed again, Kazuma didn't even flinch.

To think there would be someone who, despite having his magic resistance lowered to zero, is able to withstand both explosion and the milky way crossing… what are we going to do now?

"Are you done already, humans?"

Shit, no one until now not Yathia, not any of the bosses in the dungeon, no one would be able to survive that. He should be defenseless against out attacks, so why…

"This is all you've got? How disappointing…"

Wait, what if that's not the case at all. If he didn't have any resistance at all, then either of the two things should have worked…

"This guy…"

That faint glow which appeared when we attacked him just now. It was the same like before, there is only one thing possible, he probably has something on him, that is unaffected by vulnerability and phase traversal. That would explain the feeling I had when I casted the curse on him. Does that mean… that he is invincible?

"What are we going to do, Kazuma?"

Plan A and B failed, we can't beat him, there is only one thing that can be done.

"Plan C, we are getting out of here!"

Girls understood immediately, they started running towards Kazuma, but before they could reach him…

"I won't let you. Dimensional Lock."

"Teleport!"

Nothing has happened.

"What the hell are you doing Kazuma, get us out of here!"

"It's useless, you won't escape from me, now learn despair…"

First off he withstands everything we throw at him and now he also shut off our only escape option. This is going from bad to worse.

"World break!"

Scarlet king rose his arm into the air, a black blade appeared in his hand.

"Everyone scatter!"

"Die you pests!" He lowered his arm and a black wave shoot in the direction of the party.

"We won't make it in time, get behind me!"

"Wait you idiot…!"

Darkness jumped before them. Before the enemy spell reached her…

"Enhance Magic! Enhance Defense! Sanctuary!"

Aqua casted two buffs that increased her magical resistance and also put a protective barrier around the entire party.

The spell easily shattered the sanctuary and hit blonde haired crusader head on. She wasn't able to withstand it and had the top of her armor split open, before a fountain of blood sprung forward. She collapsed to the ground.

"Darkness!" Not wasting a moment Aqua jumped to her moveless body and started healing her.

"One down. Now it's time for the rest of you…"

Looking at a scene before him. Kazuma lost the ability to think straight.

"You piece of shit!"

He made a step forward determined to kill the enemy with his own two hands. But before he could do anything Megumin grabbed his arm.

"Wait Kazuma, don't do anything reckless!"

"Let go Megumin. I'll eviscerate him for what he's done to Darkness…"

His words were interrupted as Megumin slapped him on the face.

"Calm down! If you just charge in, you'll die. We need a plan."

Kazuma was breathing heavily. As he looked at Darkness who was spewing blood while Aqua was kneeling beside her, trying to heal her wounds, he could feel the rage taking over him. It took another slap from Megumin before he regained his cool.

Their opponent conjured something in his hand. It looked like a key of some sort. Time was running out.

Megumin is right, we need to come up with something. Damn it, we need more firepower than we currently have…

Suddenly he remembered the box on Megumin's back.

"Of course! That's it. Megumin grab all the manatite we have left!"

She didn't understand his intention, but she quickly threw the wooden crate on the ground and opened it. Inside, there were about fifty of the highest quality manatite stars inside.

"Kazuma what in the world…"

"I want you to cast one more explosion. Use all the manatite you can…"

"T-that's ridiculous, with the amount of mana, even if I succeed, then all of us…"

"Do it as a milky way crossing, this way we won't be caught in the crossfire."

She looked at him, not able to comprehend what he just said. After few seconds her face stiffened and with the voice cold as an ice, she spoke:

"I refuse, you won't be able to hold it."

"There is no time…"

"You think I'll let you throw your life a way?! Y-you fucking moron…"

"Just do it! This is our last chance"

She didn't answer, with a tears in her eyes, she simple nodded and started to prepare herself.

"Huh so you still have the strength to struggle? Very well, I'll show you the power to pierce through the heavens!"

Saying that he rose the weird key up and turned it anti-clockwise. Not even a second later, thousands of red threads shoot into the air.

Kazuma positioned himself between Megumin and the scarlet king.

I have enough mana for at least 20 more teleports. I have plenty of markers all around this cave, we should be able to dodge anything he throws at us, but…

He looked over at Aqua who was still desperately trying to heal Darkness.

If he targets them, it's over, in that case…

"Teleport."

Kazuma teleported himself and Megumin over to the two girls. Luckily they were right on top of one of his many markers.

With this I can protect everyone.

"Megumin do it."

Taking the deep breath, the crimson demon girl released the mana within the manatite stars.

"Darkness blacker than black and darker than dark."

The instant she spoke the words, her eyes started glowing with the previously unseen intensity.

"Bend to my desire, become the embodiment of my will."

"Please hurry…"

Kazuma watched in terror as the red needles suddenly started vanishing and a glowing orb could be seen in the hand of the fallen god. From it, a weapon emerged.

"High, higher yet higher. Rise beyond the limits, reach the pinnacle of perfection."

It looked like a crossing between a tournament lance and a sword. Three separate red segments above the handle and a dull tip, this was something not of this world.

"Wake up ea."

Three segments started spinning. The ominous Aura filled the air.

"In the name of the one who wields power to slay gods…"

What was the final line, Kazuma rushed forward.

"Phase traversal!"

He teleported right behind the scarlet king.

"Take this! Final thrust!"

Kazuma used the strongest single strike skill he had.

"It's useless. Now perish."

In response to that the scarlet king quickly turned around and thrusted Ea at Kazuma.

No cheap trick is going to work on this guy. As it stands right now he is practically invincible, so our only chance…

"Strike forth! Explosion!"

Is to brute force our way through him!

Just before two weapons made contact, Megumin unleashed the spell. It took all of her might to send it to Kazuma via the connected staffs. Immediately afterwards, she collapsed.

At the same time Kazuma felt like his body has been set on fire. The powerful magic flowed from the staff, through his body, to Vega and Altair. Miraculously he was able to hold it.

Two swords clashed. The recoil from the strike was so great, that in an instant all bones in Kazuma's arm fractured. Due to the adrenaline pumping through his veins, he didn't feel any pain and didn't back down. Ea cracked and shattered, not able to withstand the incredible force it's been put against. A second after that the outburst of energy left a gaping hole in a place of right arm and more than a half of the chest of the scarlet king.

"I'll give it to you… You are strong now, Kazuma Satou!"

"You are not getting away!"

Kazuma let go of Altair and using all the strength left in his body rose Vega into the air, then with a swift swing, he cut his enemy directly in half. In that instant, he felt a sharp pain in his chest, which slowly started spreading throughout his entire body.

The sound of blood splashing on the ground, was the last thing he heard the before his head went completely blank.

* * *

"Is there really nothing we can do, Aqua?! They are going to die!"

What's going on, my head hurts.

"I did everything I could for them. Beside even if they die, I can just resurrect them."

I can't see anything.

"How can you say something like that with a straight face?!"

I know this voice. Darkness?

"Does this look like a straight face to you?!"

Aqua…

"Look he is opening his eyes!"

With the grand difficulty Kazuma was able to slightly open his eyes.

"Quickly Kazuma, use drain touch on us!" He felt something wrapping itself around his wrists, it was warm.

He did as he was told, slowly he started regaining his strength.

"W-what…

"Shut up and give some energy to Megumin!"

Aqua shoved something into his palm. He recognized what it was.

"Megumin…"

He squeezed the small hand of the crimson demon girl and concentrated on sucking the energy from Darkness and Aqua and distributing it among himself and Megumin.

"K-kazuma…"

"Good, looks like she is regaining consciousness as well, let's continue"

After 10 minutes the four adventurers finally rose from the ground.

"What the hell were you two thinking?! I was certain, that you were both going to die!"

"Sorry about that Aqua, it was the only way to defeat this guy."

"We'll talk more about that later. There is something you need to see"

Darkness lead them to the

"What the hell is that?!"

A literal mountain of gold blinded their gaze.

"Looks like a treasury of some sort. Seems like Aqua was right about the loot after all…"

"What are we going to do with all this gold, Kazuma?"

"I think I know. Teleport."

Their final attack gave Kazuma an idea, an idea which could give them the weapon needed to kill the demon king. He reappeared a minute later with a familiar individual beside him. Pointing at the mountain of gold, he asked:

"So Vanir, want to strike another deal with me?"


	8. Chapter 7,5

Chapter 7.5: A night to quell all fears.

"So it's tomorrow, huh?"

Kazuma was laying on the bed in his room. It was around evening on the day before their planned confrontation with the demon king.

They spend the whole week preparing for the final battle. They did everything that could be done but even so, the scenario they've set up for the next day, is not the one that could guarantee them a certain victory.  
Main reason for that was a lack of data on their opponent, the demon king himself. In the tomb of the shattered god Kazuma learned how fragile their main tactic was. He did everything he could not to repeat the same mistake, yet there were still many gap holes in their plan, and that was considering ones he was aware of. Relics, spells, artifacts of all kinds, there were so many variables beyond his control, that he couldn't wrap his mind around the possible outcomes of the battle. Because of all that, he wasn't at his best this very moment.

There were so many thoughts running through his brain, and not a single one of them was a pleasant one. Ever since he came back from that dungeon, something was constantly bothering him, and now, anxiety and fear were devouring his mind, to the point that he was at the verge of panic.

He should probably try to get some sleep, but he simply couldn't, not in his current condition and not when there was someone missing…

The door to his room opened slowly and a small figure dressed in pajama made her way inside. She gave a quick look at the hall and turned the lock. Then she walked to the closet and opened it. Nodding with a smug expression on her face she turned around and started walking in the direction of the bed, but after one look at Kazuma, she stopped.

"What's wrong, Kazuma?"

"Huh, n-nothing…"

He rose up and sat at the verge of the mattress.

She sighed and sit on the bed about half a meter away from him.

"Megumin?"

She looked like she was measuring the distance between them. She moved a little further away.

"What's with you…"

"That should be perfect, now come here."

"She reached her hand behind his head and gently pulled him onto her lap."

He was surprised by the sudden move, but he didn't resist.

"Ready? Now spew it out. All of it, no need to hold anything back."

Saying that, she ran her fingers through his hair, it put him at ease.

"I have a lot to say, it will probably take a while…"

"If saying it all aloud is going to help you relax, then I'm fine staying like that for as long as necessary."

Kazuma took in a deep breath.

"Megumin… I'm really scared."

"It's only to be expected. We are going to fight the demon king himself. If you weren't scared, then I would start to question your sanity…"

"That's not all there is to it. I'm scared of what could have been."

Thoughts of uncertain future awoke old demons. How would their live look like, if he didn't decide to step up and change himself. Would there be any life to be looking like in the first place? Scenarios flooded his mind once again. If he was to find the courage to move forward, they'd have to be the first to get rid of.

"Huh? What…" She noticed a tear slowly forming in the corner of his eye.  
"Kazuma…"

He decided that he would get it all off his chest. Starting off with…

"I've been thinking a lot about that day, the day when I've made a decision to become the strongest adventurer. It was sometime after we defeated Serena…"

"I remember, it was when we had that argument…"

"Actually I've never told you that I've learned about the side effects of the level resetting potion right before you knocked on my door. I was lying on the bed, unsure what to do. Then, you know…"

Megumin froze. She couldn't utter a single words, as she suddenly realized…

"I don't blame you, or anything. I got exactly what I deserved…"

I left him alone. He didn't know what to do, he couldn't make a decision, I heard him saying that there was something important he wants to speak with me about, yet I decided to let it pass. I thought that he was just playing around. Oh god… I'm the worst.

"But what if I've decided to run away?"

He probably didn't want me to feel guilty about it, that's why he never told me. But now I see why he is so anxious about it.

"What if I've abandoned everything, what if I've locked myself in the capital… what if I've abandoned you…"

You could've. It wouldn't be so surprising if you actually did. But what's important is that in that moment, when we all left you, you decided to step up and change yourself. Of course, people wouldn't believe in you, but that was because they weren't aware of one thing. Once you set yourself about something, you won't back down no matter what. I knew about that part of you for a long time… I've always loved that part of you the most.

"I didn't realize the thinness of the ice I've been stepping on. All that time we were on the verge of tragedy, and it only hit me moments before it was too late."

There is only one thing he could be talking about…

"I've been fooling around, leveling up without a care in the world. I thought that you would manage without me. I was and idiot. I left you alone, that day… that bitch…"

Kazuma's voice started to tremble, Megumin patted his head a little.

You've been working your ass off. You kept it a secret from us, I still don't agree with that decision, but you did it for our sake as well. What happened next simply couldn't be avoided.

"The image of Yathia charging at you is burned so deep in my mind it is probably going to haunt me forever. What she said before, that whole making an example thing, a single thought of her succeeding at it… it's enough to make me feel like vomiting.

He is getting into the dangerous territory, I need to say something. With that thought Megumin decided to stop his monologue.

"No one saw that coming, stop blaming yourself for…"

"Now I know, that it wouldn't be so bad after all. Because you've decided that you would rather kill both of us than let her have her way. Megumin you really are brave, compared to you I'm just a lucky coward, who…"

"Shut up."

Before Kazuma could even process what she said, Megumin grabbed his head, turned it around, and kissed him.

"M-megumin…"

"You are, and will always be, a hero. You've made that decision yourself, that change of heart was the braves thing imaginable. All that followed is the result of your determination and perseverance."

Her words resonated in his mind. It was like they were carrying energy with them. They felt… warm.

"Going up against leshen, almost dying in a fight with manticore, challenging Seklas, and finally killing Yathia, you've been through so much… and yet you managed to push the limits even further during our encounter with this fallen god. If it wasn't for you, we would all have died there. You've done so many brave things…

The unseen hand grasping his heart started to lose its grip.

"And you dare compare that to this whole suicide explosion? Give me a break already. I wanted us to avoid the pain and suffering, if anybody can be called a coward, then it's me. I've always been a bother to you, more than Aqua and Darkness. I've wasted all my potential as a crimson demon on a single spell. I'm a failure, I've always been, so… "

"Shut up. "

This time around it was Kazuma who interrupted her with a kiss. He grabbed her and pushed her on the bed, landing on top of her. Their lips didn't separate for a moment during all that. When they finally did, Megumin was the first to speak.

"W-what was that, Kazuma?"

"I won't let you badmouth the person I love."

Megumin looked him dead in the eye before she let out a small giggle.

"Yeah, that line was cheesy as hell, but it doesn't change the fact that if you spew such nonsense again, I'll hit you."

"Ho, you would dare to lay a finger on me, your lover? You really are cruel Kazuma."

"True gender equality knows no boundaries and love is no exception. If the cause is just, then nothing can stop it!"

Kazuma burst out in laughter. It may have looked like he was fine again, but Megumin knew him a little too well to fall for such an obvious farce.

"So you are better now?"

"Y-yes, I'm glad I was able to let it all out, thank you Megumin, now let's change topic to something else…"

The way he acted while saying that meant that not everything was right, at least not yet. Feeling like there is no other wat, Megumin wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him towards her chest.

"Ok I'm not letting you go, until you tell me everything that's bothering you. So one again, I'm all ears."

The mask he put on shattered in an instant. The flood of unpleasant thoughts flooded his brain again. With trembling voice, he forced himself to speak.

"The other thing I'm concerned about is tomorrow's battle. There are so many things that can go wrong, and probably even more, that I'm not even aware of, that can. Just like that fight with the scarlet king…"

He paused for a moment here. Megumin felt like something was coming…

"We almost died in that dungeon. I've never fought so hard in my entire life, but it was barely enough. No, it wasn't only me who did his best, we all pushed ourselves to the limits, and what did we end up with? Darkness got critically wounded, you burned through most of your life force, and I almost died from that milky way crossing. In the end we barely escaped with our lives, we barely secured victory, but what if tomorrow… there will be no barely? What if this time our opponent will prove too much for us to handle?"

"We'll manage…"

"But what if we don't?! What if tomorrow, when the dust settles down, all that is left is our cold dead bodies?! I don't want it! I don't want it!"

Megumin decided that it was time to use heavy artillery. If he was to regain his courage, there was only one thing that could be done.

"Let's run away then."

"H-huh? Megumin what are you talking about."

"You are right, there is a high chance that something can go wrong, so let's forget everything and run. You have quite a fortune on your hand, so we can live in the luxury for the rest of our days."

"Aqua, Darkness, they would never…"

"No! Just the two of us, forget about the rest, Darkness would never leave this country, and Aqua is obsessed with defeating the demon king. Let's leave Belzerg behind. We can settle in Elroad until demon king makes his way toward it as well.

Kazuma's expression suddenly changed, he got out of Megumin's clutch and started shouting:

"Don't mess with me! Like I could leave everyone to their fate and flee with my tail between my legs!"

Her plan was working so far.

"See, you've said it yourself. You are pissed off from what I've said, yet you act like that. You are contradicting yourself. If, despite what's going on in your head, despite the fact that it's almost too much for you to handle, you still refuse to give up and run away, you need to quell those fears and you need to do it now."

"Are you trying to build up my courage that way? If so, then…"

"That's only part of the reason why I'm doing this. Remember what you said in the capital? This is not something we can just jump into and hope to work out somehow. I need you to realize something. If you are not determined to put everything on the line, we don't stand a chance against the demon king. It's far too late to have second thoughts now."

"But…"

"I understand that you are scared. I said that before, I would question your sanity if you weren't, I would question the sanity of anyone involved if they told me they are not scared. Kazuma I'm gonna be honest with you, if you don't get your shit together, somebody is going to die tomorrow. It's fine to be worried, considering the situation , but if you let yourself be overwhelmed, then it's the end for us."

Kazuma knew she was right, but…

"I know, I know, b-but what if the plan fails, what if there is a flaw that none of us noticed, what if…"

"What if, what if, what if… Let me remind you, that we chose that tactic to minimize the risk of those "What if's" getting in our way."

"I-I know, I'm the one who came up with it…"

"Then you should also realize, that you simply can't put everything under your control. I'd also like for it to go totally our way, but even if it doesn't, we'll manage."

"You keen on saying that, but what does make you think so? Answer me Megumin."

"It's simple. We'll manage, because we always did. No matter how great the odds against us were, we've won every single time. No matter what the world threw at us, we've always came on top. Tomorrow won't be any different, as long as you are leading us, we have nothing to fear, so please snap out of it already."

Her words were like a magic spell. They shattered the black cage around his heart.  
Her gentle smile, her shining eyes, he realized that this was what she believed. This wasn't a lie, she really trusted him that much. In that moment, he regained his purpose. In that moment he was filled with determination. He hugged her closely.

"Thank you Megumin, I feel like I'm better now."

"From now on, I'd like you to come to me, whenever you need to talk about something. I'll help you in whatever way I can, just like you've been helping me all this time. That's the least I can do, for the person I love."

If there were any traces of doubt in his heart, then those words blew them all out of the water.

But it turned out Megumin wasn't done mending his heart just yet. What she said next touched him in a way, he didn't know was even possible.

"Let me tell you a little story about colors. You see, red is a color of the crimson magic clan, and green really suits you Kazuma. You probably didn't know that, but red and green complete each other, they are complementary colors. Red alone is too overwhelming, green alone is too lacking. But together they complete each other. That's why I never want you to change Kazuma, because the way you are right now, you and I have a great compatibility."

Those words hit him like a truck. Kazuma hugged her even tighter. This was what he was always yearning for. For someone to accept him the way he is, that was his wish all this time. To find that special person, to love and be loved by that special person, he never felt so blessed in his entire life.

"Still, for crying out loud, getting depressed over something like that. I don't remember falling in love with such a crybaby." She chuckled while saying that.

He laughed with her, but he couldn't relax just yet. There was one more thing still hanging on.

"There is one more thing I need to tell you…"

"Kazuma?"

"I told you that after the fight with the manticore I collapsed and Darkness took me into the cave in the forest, where we waited until I recovered enough to teleport us away. But you see, when we were alone…"

"Darkness decided to make a move on you."

"Huh?! How do you know about it?"

"It's obvious, isn't it? That's what I would do if I were her. So what happened afterwards?

"I told you that I rejected her, right? It was at that cave in the forest when I told Darkness that I can't love her the way I do you. I broke her heart, because I thought that she would be just suffering in silence while looking at us. But… tell me Megumin, was that the right thing to do?"

"I can't say objectively. As be both were competing for you, I'm glad that you turned her down the way you did. But as her friend I hate seeing something like that happen to her. I can't say whether you were right or wrong with how direct that rejection was, but I know for certain, that it was still better than let her cling to hope."

"That's also what I've thought back then. I hope I made the right choice."

"Although I'm surprised. I probably shouldn't say that, but I was worried that Darkness would manage to win you over with that size of her…"

"Well, maybe I'm a lolicon after all…"

"Who are you calling a loli?!"

He kissed her deeply. He could feel the urge slowly taking over him.

"To be honest I don't mind getting called a Loli-zuma of trash-zuma, if that means that I'm able to get my hands all over you, Megumin."

"You really are a lost cause, but I'd rather see you horny than depressed. It can't be helped then, I'll grant you a permission to have sex with the greatest magic user in the world…"

"That speech would be fine and all if we weren't an active couple for so long now. Also, don't make it sound like you came up with it just now, I can see you came here prepared."

Saying that Kazuma finally got rid of her pajama, which he was working on for a second now, to reveal a black lingerie beneath.

Megumin crossed her arms on her chest. She was embarrassed to say the least. The reason for that was…

"I-I'd like to remind you who made me wear it in the first place."

"And the sight of you wearing it is making my son rage with power. Unfortunately, this is going to get in the way. Steal!"

A second later Kazuma threw the erotic underwear away from his hand. Megumin was a little puzzled by his behavior.

"What's the point of dressing in it, if you are going to get rid of it right away? Sometimes I just can't understand your perversion…"

"The sole fact, that you did something like that for me is enough. Any guy would be happy to have his girlfriend fulfill his request, that just the way we, men, work. Also I see you grew your hair longer. You really are trying to turn into my ideal girl, huh?"

He run his finger through her hair, she turned her red as a tomato face, away.

"Idiot Kazuma. Hurry up and get undressed too…"

After being gloomy the entire evening, Kazuma decided it was finally time to let some steam out.

"King crimson!"

Kazuma snapped his fingers and in an instant all his clothing vanished completely.

"Huh?! You are already naked!? How the hell did it happen!?"

"Huhuhu… so you want to know? Then let me tell you. You see, the time has just been erased, and I'm the only one aware of what happened during those few seconds. That's why you can't remember the moment when I got rid of my clothes. You see this this is the special ability of my (**REDACTED**). You should keep quiet about it or…"

"You just teleported them to some random location, just like what Wiz did with the destroyer's core, and are just messing around, aren't you?"

"Orrr you could just say that and destroy the fun. And I was just getting into it for real…"

"Making a speech just like a crimson demon? I can't help but feel you were just making fun of me…"

"Who keeps company with the wolves will learn to howl. That's just how it is, apparently acting like a retard is the first syndrome of spending too much time with a crimson de…"

Suddenly Megumin's eyes filled with tears.

"Megumin… what's wrong?!"

"After everything I've said to you, you still act that way toward me. I can't take this, you are constantly bullying me! I hate you Kazuma!"

Shit, what am I doing? How stupid can I be to say something like that, the thought rolled through his mind.

"S-sorry, maybe I was getting a little ahead of myself, forgive me Megumin I wasn't trying to…"

He rose up a little, in the exact moment Megumin's eyes shone brightly.

"You're wide open!"

She pushed him away. Despite her small size, she was still a high level adventurer and was able to reverse their positions, so that she was currently on top of Kazuma.

"Calling the way, the greatest magic users in the world behave "acting like a retard", I think I should punish you for such blasphemy."

With that she grabbed his dick and nonchalantly started sucking on it. With time Megumin became more and more assertive when it came to intimacy. What started off as an awkward felattio, with time became something worthy of a praise. Even with his ridiculous amounts of stamina, Kazuma had a hard time not succumbing to the wave of pleasure that hit him.

If getting your dick sucked is a form of punishment, then I want to be the greatest criminal this world has ever seen, with that thought in mind he grabbed Megumin and placed her on top of himself in a 69 position. Defying the laws of physics, she didn't let go of his cock for even a second. One they were both set, Kazuma started pleasing Megumin with his tongue and fingers, in response to that she picked up speed.

It turned into a race of who will make the other side come first. Megumin may have been more talented in that regard than Kazuma, but she simply stood no chance against his overpowered stamina reserves.

Soon enough she reached her climax, but despite that, she continued sucking Kazuma off.

That caught him off guard as he blew his load into Megumin's small mouth. She took all of it. Kazuma was impressed but also a little worried, he didn't want her to push herself too much, but then…

The loud sound of her swallowing it, turned him on so much, that he lost it.

As soon as Megumin, panting heavily, got off of him he used steal to grab a bottle of elixir standing on night table, drank it in one go and threw the empty vial away.

Like an predator hunting his prey, he plunged forward onto Megumin and pinned her to the bed. As their mouth connected, she wrapped her legs around him. He quickly took the invitation and pushed his dick deep inside her. Kazuma was in total control, and he was enjoying every second of it, but Megumin wouldn't let herself be dominated so easily.

Suddenly she and rolled him onto his back. The tables have turned.

"I won't become you plaything so easily. Seems like another lesson will be necessary."

Kazuma spread his arms on the bed.

"Then come at me. Show me the power of crimson demon's riding technique!"

"Yes, it's time to finally put you in your place. Behold my unsurpassed brilliance!"

With a moves really not corresponding to her innocent appearance, she started twisting and jumping on top of his dick. Like a dance of a world class ballerina, each move carried a certain grace, almost mesmerizing Kazuma, it was truly a masterwork performance. Despite the fact, that she came two times already, she kept on going. Finally Kazuma had to surrender, as he rose up and hugging Megumin tightly, shoot his seed into the deepest parts of his beloved. That was enough to make her reach her climax for the third time. Desperately gasping for oxygen, they both collapsed on the bed.

"Another victory for the world strongest mage."

With a devilish smile on her face, Megumin gave Kazuma a challenging look.

His competitive spirit was raging on, but he still needed a moment to rest, but then Megumin dropped a pipebomb…

"The look you have on your face, o kawaii koto… but don't worry Kazuma, you'll have enough time to best me one day. You are my one and only, so don't worry about losing today, because a lifetime of defeats await you!"

She put her hand on his cheek and kissed him. His heart didn't just skip a beat, it completely stopped for a moment, before going into overdrive.

Rebooting all systems. Deploying emergency stamina reserves. Executing accelerated recovery protocol. Engaging Systems all green. With everything set, he was ready for round two.

Kazuma grabbed Megumin's small frame into his arms.

"K-kazuma w-what are you doing?"

He gently placed her on the bed in a comfortable position, then spread her legs and positioned his raging boner right before her entrance.

"W-wait, I just came, I'm way too sensitive, p-please give a second to recover."

"Here I go."

Without a moment of hesitation, he went inside and pressed his advantages. One after another a monstrous slams reached all the way to her cervix, she was barely able to withstand it.

"T-this is nothing. The crimson demon's…"

He pinched her nippes and kissed her, shoving his tongue deep into her mouth. She came immediately.

"How's that? Are you done already."

Somehow she managed to put on her chuunibyou act.

"S-such a half assed performance would never satisfy me. You'd have to go much faster than that."

"You want me to go faster? I hope you are ready for what you just got yourself into…"

The evil grin he had while saying that, meant that Megumin was in trouble.

"W-wait Kazuma I'm sorry so please don't do anything crazy…"

"Impossible odds."

Before she could finish, he used a skill that greatly enhanced his speed and used it to massively increase the rate of his thrusts.

"I'm going to break!"

Soon enough, the cries of pleasure echoed through the room, as Kazuma kept on fucking Megumin at an incredible pace.

This is bad, I've completely fallen into Kazuma's trap. I'm becoming a slave to his cock… Megumin's brain was shutting down. The overwhelming sensation was too much for her to bear.

She was coming like crazy. The walls of her tight vagina constantly tightening around Kazuma pushed him over the edge.

He never came so much in his entire life. Then, once he pulled himself out of her, he lied beside her, took her face into his hands, looked right into her crimson eyes, and said:

"Megumin I love you with an every inch of my being. You are everything to me, even if I'm separated from you, even if you change, even if I lose sight of you, those feeling will never change."

Megumin's heart melted. Tears rolled through her face.

"I-idiot. Don't say things like that. Promise me Kazuma, promise me that you'll never leave me, promise me that you'll always be there for me, promise me, that we'll always be together…"

She passed out. Kazuma grabbed her into his arms and pulled the covers over them. Then he whispered into her ear.

"Yeah. I promise, Megumin, no matter what, we'll always be together."

She smiled and snuggled into him. Her slow, rhythmic breath was the most beautiful sound he ever heard.

With the one who meant a world to him in his arms, he was finally able to fall asleep.


	9. Chapter 8

Chapter 8: ******* ***** **********

The convoy rolled through the plains with an incredible speed.

"Seems like the battle has already begun."

Blonde haired crusader looked through the window of the carriage. Arrows, ballista bolts, spells of all kind, they were all flying through the air.

Even though there was carnage everywhere, the people inside had nothing to worry about, at least for now, when the magic field of the royal carriage was protecting them and making them invisible to the hordes of demons.

"T minus 5 minutes till we approach the objective."

Some stray fireball hit the barrier around the carriage. Soon enough more random shots followed. Battle has becoming more and more chaotic as time went on.

"How are we looking with our protection?"

"For now we are safe. We weren't detected just yet, but once we reveal ourselves, there won't be much time to spare before they come at us with everything they got."

"In other words, for now it's all good. Now, I hope everyone know what we are going with for the next part."

Few people nodded in agreement. Other than Kazuma, who was the leader of the operation, the team consisted of the rest of his party, Megumin, Darkness and Aqua, as well as three other people, who were a surprising bunch to say the least.

While it was a no brainer for Mitsurugi and Yunyun to join them, considering how strong those individuals were, the third person seemed totally out of place.

"I'm sorry to ask you to give up on your promise, but…"

"No apologies needed, I wouldn't go with you if I didn't want to. Besides I don't see it as giving up on my promise, not when it's about protecting someone…"

Everybody was surprised when Kazuma asked Dust to go on this mission with them, but what shocked them more, was that he agreed to do it . A good for nothing delinquent was suddenly asked to help take down the strongest being in the world. That setup didn't make any sense for anybody apart from Kazuma and two crimson demon girls.

The three of them knew the whole truth about Dust's current situation, his romance with the princess of his home country, which lead to his exilement and his vow to never again use the full extent of his power. But they also knew, that he was able to break it on one condition…

Protecting someone important, huh? The quick look he gave at one particular person, while saying that tells me more than enough what is going on here, Kazuma looked over at Megumin who smiled and nodded a little. Seems like she was thinking the same thing. For Dust to go to such extremes to make sure Yunyun was all right, must have meant that things were looking promising between the young archmage and former dragon knight.  
Although Kazuma would be more than happy if Dust wasn't forced to use the thing he gave him earlier…

"T minus one minute before contact. Confirming visual on the barrier."

"Aqua?"

"Leave that to me, one we get out I'll shatter this things no problem!"

Without any hinderances getting in their way, they managed to reach the targeted place, where the final act of the war with the demon king would take place.

"Let's go. It's time to end this war!"

Kazuma jumped outside and the rest followed suit. Aqua immediately run off to the barrier.

As soon as they got out, the spells had been lift off. For the enemy it looked like they appeared out of thin air. That element of surprise was vital for their plan to be successful, they weren't prepared for a war of attrition with their opponent, their objective was to strike fast and precisely.

"Sacred highness spell break!"

While the goddess was dealing with the obstacle, Kazuma removed the canvass off of one of four horse carts that they brought with them, and revealed its cargo, which was the most important part of the plan.

Two hundred and fifty kilograms of pure manatite on each wagon, for a total of a whole ton of the highest quality mana restoring crystals. To get that much of this stuff, Kazuma had to give away almost everything they got in the tomb of the shattered god to make a deal with Vanir.

Never before had such an immense amount of manatite been gathered in one place. From what Kazuma estimated, that this was close to the world supply of this rare mineral, considering the data provided by royal counselors. If the numbers were right, Belzerg didn't even have a quarter of what was currently gathered in this place. How exactly did Vanir managed to get this much delivered during those few short day was to remain a mystery, that was never to be solved.

Their plan was simple. Megumin would use that ridiculous amount of manatite to spam explosions all over the place, destroying as much of the opposing forces as possible. In the meantime Aqua should get rid of the barrier protecting the castle, making way for the final strike.

There were going to unleash a single, devastating explosion, using as much manatite as they could and leveling the enemy fortress to the ground. To channel such a ridiculous amount of mana, more mages would be necessary. Apart from Megumin, Kazuma, and Wiz, who couldn't join them, there was no one else in the whole kingdom capable of using explosion. Two of them wouldn't be able to hold something of this caliber, to solve that problem, there was a team of high level crimson demons on standby behind the Belzerg's lines. Yunyun was to be the one to teleport all of them to Kazuma and Megumin and help them channel enough magical energy for the final strike.

Not wasting even a second, Megumin began her usual chanting. Standing on top on the wagon full of manatite, she was an easy target for the enemy, so she was to be protected at all cost.

Darkness put down a heavy shield on the ground. She was a first line of defense. She was dressed in legendary class deldrimor armor, found in the treasury of the tomb of the shattered god, which provided her with a handful of resistance bonuses as well as a special action skill called knight's vow. She was able to tag one ally to whom she could teleport to, if she stayed within a certain distance. Additionally she was equipped with a shield, which He'stan forged from the remains of Yathia's armor, which, from what they tested before, was able to withstand anything they threw at it. As she was right now, Darkness was practically an impenetrable wall and as long as she was there, Megumin who was the chosen ally, was safe from almost anything.

However Darkness was still a single crusader, and enemy could find a way to deal with her. To avoid a possibility of something that darkness would not be able to block hurting Megumin, as well as to provide a way of dealing with enemies who got a little too close to them, Yunyun was chosen to keep close to her rival all the time. That way, there was always a possibility of emergency teleport for them, as well as a source of several advanced magic spells, that could make all the difference if used properly.

That was also where Dust was stationed, and here came the reason, why Kazuma would be rather happy if he didn't do anything in this fight, as for Dust to engage in combat would mean that their two main lines of defense failed.

Once Aqua dealt with the barrier, she was to regroup with the rest of them and depending on the situation, either stay with Megumin's group or move forward to aid the two people left.

Kazuma and Mitusrugi, because of their high mobility, were to wreak havoc across the battlefield. After their successful raid on world's most dangerous dungeon, Kazuma was left with an astonishing amount of skill points. Apart from learning and maxing out many powerful high end abillities, he also picked up a magical communication skill, which allowed him to stay in contact with somebody who also had it learned. This role fell to Yunyun which in turn let Kazuma communicate with Megumin as well. That way he could avoid any friendly fire explosion striking him or Kyouya, while they were fighting on the frontline.

"My name is Megumin, the archwizard who commands the strongest spell in the whole world. Today I'll show you the true definition of power! Strike forth, Explosion!"

At first the enemy didn't know what was going on. With the demon king's army engaged in combat with Belzerg's forces, the sudden appearance of the convoy, followed with a few quick explosions, created a massive confusion among enemy forces. That allowed Kazuma and Kyouya to quickly press their advance and get rid of some of enemy commanders. Without their leaders to order them, enemy fell into chaos. But just as Belzerg's forces were to finally break through their lines…

"I sense something coming. Oi, all of you fall back…"

Kazuma wasn't even able to finish the sentence, as a yellow flash of light decimated the remnants of demon forces, as well as most of Belzerg's soldiers present in the area.

"Shit!"

Two adventurers, barely able to avoid being struck, looked at the source of the attack. About a kilometer away from them, was a bizarre war machine, that was named by the kingdom as…

"Engine of woe! And there is more of them further ahead. What are we going to do, Kazuma?!"

"We can't let them close in on Megumin and the rest. We have no choice but to get rid of them before…"

"Kazuma, we are getting overrun here, we could really use some backup."

The constant bombardment of explosions was not stopping for even a moment. If the enemy was able to advance on them despite the carnage that Megumin was creating, meant that more magic resistant troops had arrived on the battlefield.

"Shit, looks like the enemy managed to regroup. We need to act fast, follow me, Mitsurugi!"

Both of them rushed forward to the wicked machinery. The managed to successfully destroy them, without enemy even having a chance to retaliate. That gave Kazuma hope.

"Give us two more minutes Yunyun, we'll be back once we get rid of those things!"

Just as Kyouya sliced another engine of woe in half, a loud shattering sound echoed through the battlefield. The blue field around the castle collapsed, that could only mean on thing.

"Aqua destroyed the barrier!"

Finally, some good fucking news, now she can join the rest of them, meaning that we have more time to get rid of those weapons, with that thought Kazuma smiled, things were looking pretty good so far. Well, maybe aside from the massive casualties on kingdom's side, but as long as Aqua was fine, she would resurrect them no problem. They were almost ready to move to the next stage of the plan.

"As expected of Aqua-sama, she was able to get rid of it. Let's finish our business here!"

They threw themselves forward. Acting like a well-oiled machine, cleverly managing aggro from the monsters, they were able to quickly clear their objective.

To think that a day when I'd be able to fight on par with a cheating hero would come… with that thought Kazuma teleported himself and Kyouya back to the rest of the team.

After they arrived Kazuma quickly understood why Yunyun was so desperately asking for assistance. About ten bloodthirsters were slowly advancing toward their position. He looked on the ground and noticed bottomless swamp being casted on a large area around them. Yunyun made a great use of manatite, yet those magic resistant bastards weren't entirely stopped as steadily but surely they were closing in on them.

"Kazuma-san we are encircled."

"Good, that means that we can attack in any direction. Darkness blacker than black…"

Just as he started chanting explosion to get rid of a large group of demons swarming from the side…

"This is the end."

A black shadow suddenly appeared behind Yunyun, and rose a dagger to the air.

Darkness and Mitsurugi immediately started running toward the archamge, who froze in fear. Aqua's face stiffened from what she saw.

"Yunyun!"

The trio cried in the same moment, none of them close enough to do anything, none of them believing that she could be saved. Only Kazuma and Megumin were indifferent as they continued chanting explosion like nothing was happening. The reason that they were able to keep calm in such situation…

Just as the blade was about to sink into Yunyun's back, a shadow suddenly froze in place and spew blood from what was looking like its mouth.

Was bacause there was one more person keeping watch over two crimson demons.

"Took you long enough Dust. Explosion!"

Megumin briefly looked around her shoulder, then returned to her spell like nothing has happened.

"I-impossible, I've been blessed by the demon king-sama, no weapon can hurt me…"

"No weapon my ass, now fuck off you black fart!"

Saying that Dust took a great swing with the spear he pierced the shadow with. The creature has been sent flying and landed in a magically created marshland and slowly sunk in.

Everybody's eyes focused on the object wielded by Dust. It was a legendary magical spear that Kazuma gave to him sometime before the battle. It was unique as it had a special class requirement to wield it, only someone of rare dragon knight profession could be a master of that spear, called Gae Bolg. It had a special effect of always being able to reach its target, no matter what stood in its way. If Mitsurugi's sword was able to cut through everything, then Gae Bolg was able to pierce through everything. Equipped with such a mighty weapon, Dust was a force to be reckoned with.

Noticing the trio, who realized Dust's true power, to be spacing out, Kazuma began shouting.

"Aqua if you don't have anything better to do, then cast some blessings on us. And I have something to say to you two."

He turned his attention to a crusader and a weapon master.

"Darkness, you could have used knight's vow to teleport to Megumin and protect Yunyun who was standing right next to her. And you Kyouya, next time use phase traversal in a situation like that. Grab a hold of yourself you two! If Dust wasn't there Yunyun could have been killed. Don't let emotions get the better of you, use you heads damnit!"

Kazuma scolded both of them, then grabbed some manatite to regenerate his mana and continued cutting down enemy lines with long range spells.

"Is that really Kazuma? To act like that… what have happened to him?" Aqua simply couldn't believe what she was witnessing with her own eyes.

Megumin smiled under her nose, it seemed like the previous night really helped Kazuma…

Kazuma's words combined with a stupid smile on Dust's face, ignited a competitive spirit among the rest of the adventurers. Cut down to pieces by Kyouya, pierced by Dust and killed by Yunyun's spells after being cursed by Kazuma, ten bloodthristers fell to the ground.

"That was the last of them, Yunyun teleport the crimson demon squad to us and…"

Suddenly a loud voice echoed through the battlefield. All of the enemy forces stopped dead in their tracks when they heard it.

"So the heroes finally decided to take the stage, huh?"

The source of the sound was a large balcony on top of the castle. Someone was standing there.

"Farsight"

Kazuma used the skill to get a better view on the one responsible for the commotion, he smiled when he confirmed who the mysterious someone was.

"Seems like our target decided to reveal himself."

"That's him?"

A red flaming armor covering the entirety of his body. A pair of giant black wings on his back and a burning red halo on top of his head. There was only one being in this world, matching that appearance.

"Demon king confirmed to be inside the castle. We are moving to phase two, Yunyun!"

"Teleport!"

Not wasting even a second, the archmage teleported herself away and quickly returned with a few of familiar crimson demons. They quickly took positions around the manatite carts and started creating a magic circle that going to allow them to cast that final explosion.

"No matter what you do, it's useless. Now behold the true power of my legions!"

Once again the loud voice echoed in the air. Kazuma wondered if the demon king was using some kind of a spell to increase the volume of his voice, but that train of thoughts was interrupted as suddenly red portals started popping out everywhere.

A second later a flood of scary looking demons started flowing out from them. Megumin was quick to target one by one with her explosion, but despite her best efforts, she wasn't able to stop the swarm of enemies from approaching them. Kazuma cursed, he needed to quickly come up with some sort of a plan or else they would be overrun.

"Kazuma I can close those portals if you get me close enough!"

"Are you sure about that Aqua?"

"Trust me, I know how to deal with that."

"Ok then, I'll go with you, the rest…"

"Two of you won't make it, I'll help as well."

Mitsurugi interrupted him with a serious look on his face. However, as much as Kazuma would like additional support…

"No, we need more people protecting the mages, you stay behind."

"Take him with you, me and Dust will manage."

"Darkness.."

"If any more of them come here we'll lose! Together with Darkness, we'll protect everybody, so get going already!"

"Dust… Shit you are right this is no time to falter, victory is close, Aqua, Kyouya prepare yourselves!"

"Grab onto me, my goddess!"

In an awkward move Aqua wrapped herself around the weapon master. He blushed vigorously.

"This is no time to act like a flustered virgin!"

"Kazuma you…"

"Phase traversal!"

Kyouya wanted to get back on him, but that would have to wait, for now there were more pressing matters at hand.

"Phase traversal!"

The three of them arrived at the location of the closest portal as soon as they approached, a new wave of demons emerged from it.

"Light of Saber!"

With a quick three slashes, Kazuma killed most of the enemies in an instant. The ones with enough magic resistance to survive were quickly cut down by Kyouya."

"Sacred highness spell break!"

The portal quickly vanished.

"Good, now on to the next one…"

One by one the portals were closed by the the three of them. Looking down on the situation, the demon king was not pleased…

"Angron."

A large creature appeared on the balcony and kneeled before the demon king.

"Yes my lord?"

"Bring Kazuma Satou and this blue haired priestess to me. I want them alive, you can do whatever you see fit with anyone else."

"As you wish."

He disappeared as quickly as he arrived. At the same time Kazuma and the rest were almost done.

"Good only one remaining."

They went quite far from the rest of the group, but it didn't matter as long as Kazuma was able to teleport them back.

"See with a goddess like me on our side, nothing can get in our way."

"Oi, when you say something like that…"

Suddenly, a large shadow crashed to the ground some distance away from them.

"My name is Angron, my king ordered me to bring Kazuma Satou and blue haired priestess to him. This doesn't concern you, weapon master. Step back and I'll spare your life."

"Aqua what did I say about raising flags?! Now we have to deal with him!"

The individual before them, was one of the demon king's strongest remaining soldiers. From what they learned in capital, Angron was once a general in demon king's army, but was laid off when Vanir joined in. It was one of the worst enemies for them to encounter right now.

"I'll deal with him. Close the last portal and return to the rest of the team."

Mitsurugi made few steps towards the giant demon, who was slowly walking in their direction.

"Wait, from what we know, this guy is on the same level as Yathia, we should probably get rid of him together, one on one is way too dangerous…"

"My sword can cut through everything, so I'll be able to deal some damage to him, regardless of what happens. Beside just taking his attention from you is enough if you manage to destroy the castle."

"Then deal with him quickly and come to us! And remember if you die, I'll sell smelt your sword into a chasity belt! Teleport!"

Kyouya smiled and turned his attention to the opponent.

"I recognize that sword, you are that bastard…"

"I'm Mitsurugi Kyouya and today I'll take your head!"

"Come at me tiny man. I'll bath in your blood." He slammed a massive axe to the ground.

"Impossible odds."

Kyouya attacked Angron, who was able to match the sword master in speed. As their exchange of blows was becoming more and more fierce, Kyouya attacked Angron with unrelenting assault. With the first hit he cut off his right hand. The axe fell to the ground. But then, just as he was about to decatitate the demon, suddenly Angron struck him with his massive fist. The attack hit Kyouya cleanly and made him slam to the ground.

Caughing up blood, he slowly rose to his feet. Three broken ribs, a bruised kidney and fractured kneecap from a bad landing. All that damage from a single punch, Mitsurugi was in trouble.

"Aren't you supposed to be one of those chosen heroes? If that's the case then you are way weaker then I imagined. I'll kill you right away you pest." Saying that he took his severed hand from the gound and placed it on top of the stump. It quickly combined with the rest of his body.

They continued fighting for another ten minutes. Angron was able to overpower Mitsurugi in single handed combat, if he was beaten now, the entire plan would fail. Left with no other choice, Kyouya was pushed to his last resort.

"Unrelenting assault!"

"Using the same tactic again? I expected more of you…. Wait what are you doing?"

Rather than attacking him again, Mitsurugi was just standing still, while he took something out from his pocket.

"Kazuma mentioned that there was an enemy who attacked him during unrelenting assault. In his case it also happened after he struck his opponent first. I didn't attack you so you can't attack me either. It was a gamble, which gives me enough time to use this!"

He rose the artifact that Kazuma gave him into the air and twisted it anti-clockwise. It was something that dropped from the crimson king, the key to the greatest weapon of the fallen god. It turned out it wasn't destroyed in the fight with Kazuma, and could be used again by someone else. The only one with high enough stats to wield it was Mitsurugi, hence why Kazuma entrusted it to him.

As soon as it fully materialized in Kyouya's hand, his vision began to blurry. Wielding two handed Garm in one hand and Ea in the other, he charged forward.

Kazuma noticed a familiar red strings in a distance, that could only mean one thing.

"Shit, he used Ea. That means Angron is way more powerful than we could have imagined."

"Is he going to be okay?"

"Ea is extremely hard to control, but it's probably one of the most powerful weapons in this whole world. He won't be beaten so easily. We are done here, Teleport!"

After closing the final portal Kazuma and Aqua returned to Megumin and the rest.

The crimson demons finished the magic circle. Kazuma took out his staff and handed Vega to Megumin. That way not only would they be able to cast the spell together, but Megumin would also be equipped with the best catalyst possible.

Just as the final act was about to start, Kyouya finally managed to pierce the heart of Angron with Ea. As the demon's body crumbled, adventurer fell to his knees. Ea vanished into thin air, while Kyouya was frantically gasping for oxygen. He didn't expect for the sword to take such a heavy toll on him. He wanted to immediately go to where Kazuma and the rest were, but he wasn't able to move right now.

Megumin was the first one to start.

"Darkness blacker than black…

"And darker than dark…"

Slowly they started pulling more mana into the spell, but just as they were about to start the second line of chanting…

"Playtime is over. If I can't get you alive, then I'll kill you when you stand.

Sinister words echoed through the air. Kazuma noticed that the demon king created a red orb in his hand and that it was slowly getting larger and larger.

"Globe of annihilation!"

He swung his hand and the red orb came flying in their direction.

"Incoming attack! Darkness!"

"Bastion of light!"

She took the attack head on, although she managed to block it, the force of the impact was so great that it send her flying. The earth cracked, flipping over the convoy and interrupting Megumin and Kazuma, who just like Darkness landed a solid 20 meters away from their original spot. Kazuma slowly got back to his feet.

"Fuck, this is bad… Megumin!"

She wasn't moving at all, seemed like the harsh landing knocked over Megumin, but before Kazuma could even do as much as move over to her.

"Enkidu: Chains of heaven"

He was immobilized by several golden chains, which appeared from all possible directions around him.

"This is the end for you!"

"Lance of Longinus"

Red bident appeared in the hand of the demon king.

"Teleport!"

Kazuma tried teleporting away from the scene, but was unable to do so.

"There is no escape for you, now learn despair!" The demon king said, as he threw the weapon in the direction of Kazuma.

Mitsurugi was running in their direction, but he was still way too far away to do anything. Darkness couldn't stand up after taking the previous attack, she needed more time to recover. Dust tried hurling his spear at the incoming projectile, but was interrupted by the bloodthrister who suddenly crashed down on him. With Yunyun and Aqua knocked out next to Megumin, there was no one who could save Kazuma.

It's not the end of the world, Aqua will just have to resurrect me… with that thought Kazuma closed his eyes ready for the lance to kill him, for a moment he thought, that he heard some ruckus behind him…

He felt blood gashing on his face, but strangely enough he didn't feel any pain. He opened his eyes again, but rather than seeing the familiar room with a goddess of luck sitting in the middle, he was only able to catch a glimpse of a small figure slowly falling to the ground.

His heart stopped as he realized what has just happened. He felt like his body has been set on fire as the chains binding him shattered into a million pieces.

"I-impossible that's…"

The demon king couldn't believe what he just saw. He recognized the aura that appeared around the young adventurer. He decided to quickly finish the fight, but just as he was preparing another lance of longinus, some long range fireballs and magically enhanced arrows came flying in his direction. It was the kingdom forces, who were finally able to regroup, after Kazuma dealt with most threads on the battlefield. He was barely able to shield himself. If he lowered his guard, he would take substantial damage. Left with no choice he turned his attention away from his archenemy.

Kazuma manager to grab Megumin before she landed on the ground. When he looked at her condition, the tears flooded his eyes.

The spear pierced right through her chest, with a wound like that, she would be dead within a minute. The only reason she was able to survive in the first place…

Kazuma looked at the amulet she had on her neck. The crystal, which was previously shining with red light, was now slowly fading.

Was because of Banshee's veil, the fourth and final artifact from the tomb of the shattered god. It was the one that granted scarlet king his incredible, impenetrable magic shield. Kazuma decided to give it to Megumin, to act as a final line of protection for his beloved. That was the reason Megumin decided to jump in front of Kazuma, she probably believed that bansee's veil would be able to withstand the blow.

The pool of blood beneath her body was quickly becoming larger and larger. With a corner of his eyes Kazuma noticed that Aqua and Darkness both got up and were running towards them.

"Aqua hurry up!"

"K-kazuma listen…" A quiet whisper emerged from Megumin's mouth.

"P-please, don't speak, Aqua will be here in a moment, Megumin I beg of you, please don't…"

With the last bit of her strength, she rose her hand and touched his cheek , which was wet with tears. In response, Kazuma wrapped his hands around her neck and started pouring his life energy through drain touch.

"I won't let you die!"

In the same moment Aqua finally got to them. She quickly fell to her knees beside Megumin and started casting the strongest healing spells she had. But much to her and Kazuma's horror neither them, nor drain touch seemed to be working.

"I can't heal her. No matter what I do, nothing happens…"

With her eyes slowly losing color, Megumin looked at Kazuma.

"F-from the bottom of my heart…"

Why is this happening. After I finally found happiness it is being taken away from me… Kazuma started to break down.

"I love… you…"

After she whispered those words, her hand limply fell to the ground.

"Megumin… MEGUMIN!"

Kazuma let out and inhuman scream, while darkness collapsed to her knees.

"S-she is dead, Megumin…" The tears flooded her eyes.

Despite Aqua casting restoration spells with all her might, the wounds on Megumin's body weren't healing at all. All of them knew what that meant.

"She can't be resurrected…"

If her body wasn't fully restored, she couldn't be resurrected. That was the basic principal behind that spell, even a goddess like Aqua wasn't able to break that rule.

As Kazuma said aloud, what everyone was thinking, the grim silence followed. Darkness started shaking.

"W-what are you saying, t-that can't be true, Aqua please…"

"I won't give up no matter what!"

Aqua was still trying her best. The image of her kneeling over at Megumin's body, split his heart open. He looked at top of the castle, which was being bombarded with an impossible amount of spells and long range weaponry. Kazuma could feel the negative emotions slowly taking over him. He wasn't boiling with rage, it was more like a pitch black hatred pumping through his veins. He was just robbed of the most important person in his life, yet despite the imaginable anguish and sorrow literally twisting his insides, he was, much to his own surprise, able to stay relatively calm.

"I'm sorry everyone. I'll end it once and for all."

"Kazuma…"

Darkness didn't understand what he was talking about. It was in that moment, that Kazuma made his decision.

He slowly rose up, gathered the equipment laying around and walked back to the magic circle. Yunyun, Dust and Mitsurugi, together with the rest of the crimson demons were standing there. They all looked miserable.

"We are abandoning the plan. All of you, return behind kingdom lines. We'll join you in a moment…"

"Kazuma…"

Yunyun placed her hand on top of Dust's shoulder.

"Please don't say anything. Teleport."

The rest of the mages lowered their heads a little and followed suit. As soon as all of them were gone, Kazuma walked to one of the flipped carts and grabbed a large piece of manatite. Releasing mana from it, he looked around.

"Magic detection."

He saw a few distortions around him. Those were teleport markers that Yunyun and other crimson demons placed around. With a wave of his hand, he got rid of them.

After that he walked to the middle of magic circle. He shoved Vega and Altair into the ground and took twin staffs into his hands. Then he heard a loud voice.

"What the hell are you doing?!"

Someone approached him from behind.

"Get away from here Darkness, I'm going to channel all manatite into an explosion and kill that bastard."

Darkness's face went pale as she heard that.

"This is suicide, stop…"

"Yes, you are right. This is suicide."

"Huh, what are you…"

"The Moment Megumin died, my life lost all meaning. Even if I survive the cast, I'd be too close to the castle. This is my decision, I won't let you get in my way."

"Aqua…"

"Take her with you and run away, I won't repeat myself."

"Kazuma…"

For a moment he thought that she was going to force him to stop. He was prepared to teleport her away if she approached him, but instead Darkness walked in front of him and planted her shield into the ground. He thought, that she lost her mind, but there was a different reason for her behavior, she was disgusted with herself.

"Knight vow second form, damage absorption."

She targeted Kazuma with the skill. His empty gaze fell upon blonde crusader.

"What…"

"I failed. If I wanted to, I could have saved Megumin by taking the damage upon myself. Yet I hesitated, because in that moment I remembered, that she was the one who took the person I loved from me. I though, that if she was gone, you would turn to me instead. I failed as a crusader and as a person. Kazuma I beg you to forgive me because I'll never forgive myself for that. I'll protect you with my life, this is my punishment for letting her die."

That wasn't her masochistic side speaking. Her words were filled with with grief and guilt. At this rate Aqua was going to suffer as well, but there was a chance, that she would be teleported to the heaven the moment demon king dies, left with no other choice, Kazuma decided to take that gamble.

"Then steel your resolve, this is going to end soon."

Aqua didn't hear their conversation. She was still trying to resurrect Megumin, but her efforts were all in vain. Kazuma run out of tears to cry. He slowly started the chanting.

"Darkness blacker than black and darker than dark…"

As the first crystals started vanishing, the demon king took notice of Kazuma. His troops had been scattered and Belzerg forces kept relentlessly bombarding him.

"You madman you are going to kill us all! Tele…"

"Dimensional lock."

Kazuma briefly interrupted his casting and using additional mana to increase his range, placed a field around the demon king, that made it impossible to use any mobility spells and skills. With that, the demon king was locked in place, not able to run away from the apocalypse that Kazuma was going to unleash.

"You really are insane. I'll get rid of you and those annoying pests. Ninth Symphony of Hell!" As he said those words, the wings on his back spread widely before crumbling down. Then, hundreds of spears resembling lance of longinus started appearing all around the demon king. The distant cries of retreat echoed through the air. Kazuma was indifferent.

"Now perish!"

"Chaldeas!"

As countless projectiles came flying their way, Darkness activated her strongest defensive ability. It granted her almost total invulnerability, but it came at a heavy price, as a large portion of her lifeforce was required to upkeep it.

In the same time Kazuma focused on the spell. A giant red circle appeared above the castle while more and more manatite started dissipating. Suddenly an entire cart of crystals vanished and two others followed suit. An impossible amount of mana filled the air.

Kazuma felt like his body was being ripped apart, but he didn't falter. Soon enough all manatite has been turned into a pure magical energy. That allowed Darkness to continue using chaldeas as the demon king wasn't stopping with his onslaught.

Being constantly sucked up dry by the spell and refilled by manatide countless times over, Kazuma was at the verge of losing his mind. It was a never ending nightmare, so easy go give in, yet the hatred inside kept him going on.

"Kazuma what the hell is going on…"

As soon as an enormous red magic circle appeared above the castle, Yunyun's voice exploded in his mind. He quickly cut the communication off.

"Let my wrath destroy it all…"

Yes, all of it. Demon king, his troops, his castle, even... me. That bastard took everything from me in an instant, I'll gladly throw myself into oblivion to watch him die for that.

One by one, more magic circles started appearing above the fortress.

"Let the cruel justice fell upon mere maggots that call themselves my enemies. No matter the cost, let there be no survivors."

Yet, it won't be enough. Such a quick death, he doesn't deserve it. How I wish I could get my hands on him. I'd make him await his death with an open arms, maybe then he would feel something close to what I'm feeling right now.

"Higher…"

He closed his eyes, he could feel his life slowly fading away.

"Higher…"

"…zuma…"

"Yet higher"

He kept on pushing, it was almost over. Suddenly a voice echoed through his mind.

"Struggle, fight, prevail, and in the moment of your greatest challenge, in the moment of despair, remember those that are important to you, as they'll be the ones to save your heart before it's destroyed forever."

He still couldn't understand what that whole situation was about, was he really just hallucinating, or was there something more to it? His heart, destroyed forever, what could that mean? Remember those important to you? The most important person in his life was taken away from him, the rest is going to follow soon enough. He failed, so none of that mattered now…

Yet it turned out it did. Those few seconds of hesitation turned out to be the most important moment in his entire life, maybe even the most important in the whole history of this whole world.

"Kazuma!"

It was almost like someone was calling his name though it didn't matter, it was the time…

"Strike forth! Ex…"

"SNAP OUT OF IT ALREADY YOU IDIOT"

Suddenly Kazuma felt a burning sensation on his cheek. He finally opened his eyes only to have them shoot into orbits, when he saw who hit him a second ago.

"H-How… Ha ha, I see, I must be losing my mind from all this mana in the air, this isn't real."

He started chucking, the girl he failed to protect was standing before him, he closed his eyes again and continued laughing until suddenly he felt something warm pressing against his lips and something being pulled away from his hands.

He opened his eyes and suddenly came back to his senses. With his arms free of the staffs, he grabbed a small figurine who, defying all reason, was still there.

"Pervert…"

He ignored the voice he heard behind his back, focusing solely on…

"You are real? My mind isn't playing tricks on me?

"I'm very much alive but if you keep squeezing me with such force, it won't be for long!"

"B-but how, he killed you…"

"So? Since when are you the only one that can be resurrected?"

"Aqua wasn't able to…"

He turned around, the blue haired priestess was standing behind him. But what struck him as quite odd, was the way Aqua was looking at him. Like she was trying to find something. Suddenly she shouted:

"I knew it! God's blow!"

Without any warnings, she struck Kazuma in the middle of his chest. He felt her fingers penetrating deep into his rib cage.

"Aqua!" Darkness turned her head around in surprise. Then she saw that Aqua was holding something in her palm.

"I should have known something was going on. Ever since you killed that bastard I've been picking a smell of corruption from you. To think that he planted a shard oh himself in you upon his death…"

She crushed the black stone in her hand. It scattered to the wind. She continued speaking while healing Kazuma.

"The reason I wasn't able to heal Megumin was because of that artifact you gave her. It was cursed by the scarlet king, so that's why my magic didn't work.

"When did you notice that?"

"When you released all this mana into the air.  
Among it, something, previously well hidden, caught my eye. An ominous aura, so horrifying, that it almost made me vomit. I recognized it right away but it took some time to get rid of its source. Just like you, Megumin had a small shard in her heart, it mush have formed, when you used drain touch on her moments ago. That's why you weren't able to give her any life force earlier."

Kazuma couldn't believe what he just heard.

"Shit, to think that because of something like that Megumin…"

Small archmage got right into his face.

"My death is nothing compared to what would have happened if I didn't stop you from casting that spell."

"Huh, what are you talking about?"

Aqua began explaining.

"If you released all that mana gathered here, that shard in your heart would probably absorb all of it, which in the worst case, might have even left to the revival of the scarlet king and the destruction of the vessel, in other words, your death."

"You must be kidding me…"

"Yeah, we barely avoided an end of the world scenario. Although I'm not entirely sure what would happen if he materialized so close to the demon king. Maybe they would jump at each other's throats, who knows…"

"Huh? Why would the two of them engage in a combat. Is there some bad blood between them, or what?"

"It's about name similarities. Scarlet king hates the fact that after his exile from the pantheon, some other popular guy took on akin alias, at the same time crimson king is often called a rip-off, hence why they hate each other. But that doesn't matter now…"

Megumin kicked Kazuma in the ankle.

"Kazuma I understand that you were partially under the influence of the shattered god, but what you've done was beyond stupid! We originally planned to use about two carts for the final attack, yet you unleashed magic from all four of them! Why the hell did you do that?!"

"W-well you see, after you were killed and Aqua wasn't able to resurrect you, I…"

"Now you see what I went through when you resisted resurrection back then. All and all you did that for me, so I forgive you. So shall we continue?"

She handed his staff back to him. He took it from her and only then did he realize…

"The spell! I totally forgot about it, it can go off any second now!"

He looked at the magic circles above the castle, he expected to see them vibrating ant twisting like crazy, which would be the sign of an incoming disaster, but oddly enough they appeared motionless, as if the spell has been stopped, or al the very least halted.

"Calm down. I already stabilized it, although it wasn't easy considering how much mana has been poured into it."

"Y-you did? When?!"

"The moment I took the staffs from you. While you were busy weeping on my shoulder, I managed to partially put it under my control."

To do such an extraordinary feat is such a short duration of time and without him noticing at all. Kazuma felt nothing but respect for the young archamage.

"You just stabilized an amount of mana, which Aqua labeled as enough to resurrect a fucking god?! Megumin… you really are awesome."

She blushed at the sudden praise.

"A feat like that is nothing for the number one…"

"I'm happy that you are enjoying yourselves, but I could use some backup here!"

Darkness was barely holding on. The demon king wasn't stopping with his attack and despite the fact that darkness was able to regenerate some of her lifeforce by simply standing in the magic circle, she was exhausted and on the verge of having to deactivate chaldeas, which would in turn spew the end for the rest of the party.

Kazuma slapped his face. It wasn't the time to lose focus.

"Aqua help Darkness, me and Megumin are going to end this here and now."

"I'm on it!"

Aqua channeled some of the mana still present around her and went on to restore Darkness's viality using it.

"I was able to take on such an incredible onslaught and there is still more to come. This is the greatest day of my entire life!"

"We need to pour all of this stray mana into the spell. Ready?"

"After you." Kazuma responded while taking Altair into his right hand. Megumin picked up Vega into her left hand and stood side by side with Kazuma. They crossed their swords.

"Darkness blacker than black…"

"And darker than dark…"

They began reciting the formula, one line at the time.

"You damn crusader, fall down already."

"I beseech thee, combine with my deep crimson…"

"I won't let you hurt them, I'll stop you with my own body. You can't break my will!"

Darkness shouted back at the demon king. It was impossible for him to hear her voice, but he still appeared pretty pissed off.

"The time of awakening cometh…"

"If you think you can stop me, then you are deeply mistaken!"

The demon king was far from surrendering. Once he realized, that he couldn't pierce through Darkness's defense using the ninth symphony of hell, he used his trump card.

"Angron I call upon thee, come and serve me again!"

As he let go of the spell and snapped his finger, an enormous creature, that shouldn't be alive crashed down some distance from the adventurers.

"Knight's vow!"

Darkness quickly changed her position to get between Angron and her friends. They went too far to be stopped now. She was determined to protect Kazuma and Megumin at any cost.

"It over now! Lance of longinus!"

Angron charged forward and at the same time the demon king threw three lances in their direction. Darkness wouldn't be able to stop everything, all was lost.

Suddenly…

"Gae Bolg!"

A red spear came flying and pierced the chest of a giant bloodthrister. Then…

"Enuma elish!"

A red wave of energy evaporated all of the projectiles flying their way.

"Took you long enough!"

Aqua shouted to the three figures quickly closing on them. Kazuma and Megumin were so caught up in the spell, that didn't even notice their arrival.

"It would be way easier if we were able to teleport here… Megumin?! She's alive… what the hell is going on here?!"

"We'll explain later, now focus on the battle, it's almost over!"

Hearing the tone of Darkness's voice, Yunyun immediately set a marker and once teleported the squad of crimson demons there, while Dust and Kyouya charged at the Angron, who was still refusing to die.

"S-such an extreme amount of mana… as expected of the slayer of leshen…"

Mages took their position. As soon as Kazuma and Megumin got additional people to help, something changed.

"Justice, fallen upon the infallible boundary…"

A blue wings, made entirely out of mana appeared on Kazuma's back.

"Appear now as an intangible distortions…"

Shortly after the same thing happened to Megumin.

"I desire for my torrent of power a destructive force.."

The two looked like an angels of death, bringing destruction upon their enemies, everybody held their breath.

"A destructive force without equal!"

The bottom most magic circle above the castle started expanding. It was about a thousand meters in a diameter now.

"Return all creation to cinders..."

About ten new circles started appearing…

"And come from the abyss!"

And thousands more followed. They reached as high into the sky as they could see. Kazuma and Megumin both rose the swords into the air.

"Even if you defeat me today, humanity is still going to be destroyed. Remember my words, more of us will come, and drown this world in blood!"

"Strike forth! Explosion!"

And lowered them at the same time. The exact moment they did…

"Teleport!"

Few voices shouted and the entire squad appeared in an encampment, behind Belzerg lines. The remnants of the kingdom army were all gathered here, and they were witnessing something incredible.

First a flash of light so bright, that the sun appeared dim in comparison. Then an enormous fireball and reaching as far as the place from which they casted the spell. Despite being a solid 30 kilometers away from the blast zone they still felt a shockwave hitting them, while a hurricane class winds knocked some people away. Lastly, a sound like the whole world just shattered and then silence.

Kazuma slowly took out his adventurer's card from his pocket and looked at the recently killed enemies. He rose Altair into the air and shouted.

"The archenemy of mankind has finally been vanquished. Today is out victory day!"

The demon king's name was written there, their long quest has finally ended.

People started shouting in celebrations. Some of them were crying, some were simply sitting there still not able to wrap their heads around what just happened. Among the noise, Kazuma asked:

"So Megumin, it's your turn to judge, how was that? "

"Isn't it obvious Kazuma?"

Chapter 8: ******* ****** **********

"A full one million points."

Chapter 8: Million points explosion

* * *

Suddenly, a white light enveloped Kazuma, Megumin, Darkness and Aqua. It was so bright that they had to close their eyes to avoid being blinded. Once they opened them again, they saw a room, which Kazuma saw more times than he would like to.

"Welcome back senpai, and hail to you, mighty heroes, I'm here to congratulate you on your victory in a fight with a demon king."


	10. Epilogue

Epilogue: An end to this story.

"E-E-E-Eris-sama?!"

Darkness quickly knelt before silver haired goddess.

"My goddess I, Dustiness Lalatina am honored to…"

"Eris!"

Suddenly Aqua jumped forward and hugged Eris, flipping the throne she was sitting at. Megumin and Kazuma tilted their heads in confusion, while Darkness almost fainted from the shock.

"What the hell, she was always talking trash about Eris and yet she does something like that the moment she sees her…"

"Yeah I thought she might go and attack her or something, although…"

"Yamete Senpai, please stop tickling me, everybody is looking, it's so embarrassing!"

"That might be Aqua's way of getting her revenge… hey look Eris is flustered, oh she looks so cute with that expression on her face, I wish I could hug her as well…"

"Darkness blacker than black…"

"Oi oi oi stop it Megumin, I was joking, I was joking!"

"W-what are you doing, this is the goddess Eris is person, show some…"

"Oi, whats with you Darkness? You've never knelt before me, so don't give Eris special treatment, just because you are part of her cult."

"Huh, what are you talking about Aqua?"

"Senpai is right Darkness-san, please rise up, you've done well protecting everybody, you kneel before no one."

"S-senpai? Don't tell me all that nonsense about Aqua really being a goddess…"

"Surprising right? I've had a hard time digesting that myself… oi Kazuma by that look, that you are imagining perverted stuff, while looking at Eris and Aqua, top that or I'll hit you!"

"Are you jealous Megumin? Man you look so cute, when you're angry…"

"Y-you…"

"And even more when you are embarrassed like that…"

As Kazuma was messing with Megumin and Aqua was still harassing Eris, Darkness slowly got up.

"I can understand Aqua if she is really is a goddess…"

"Oi what's with that doubtful tone…"

"And Kazuma is always disrespectful…

"Oi who are you calling disrespectful…"

"But I can't understand your behavior Megumin. How can you act like that with Eris-sama present?"

"Well, I met with big boss, when I died. When she told me that I'd be reincarnated, I threatened to blow up the heaven, so we just had a little chat over a cup of tea instead."

"Y-y-y-y-you did what?!"

"Then Aqua resurrected me and with all that followed we are here now. That also leads to the guestion I have. Why did you brought us all here, big boss?"

Eris finally got out of Aqua's clutches and after clearing her throat, she answered:

"Normally, only Kazuma-san and Senpai should be allowed to enter, as they were the ones who took up a quest to defeat the demon king, but because you were all fighting together, I've decided to bend the rules a little. Still…

She gave a puzzled look at the four of them standing there.

"I thought I set the number of people to five, not four. I wanted to bring Yunyun-san here as well, so something must have gone wrong. It's a shame, but nothing can be done so let's get to the next part."

"The next part?"

"I know it's probably pointless to ask, but I'll do it anyway. Kazuma-san, do you want your wish to be fulfilled and return to Japan?"

Megumin's eyes shoot wide open. She was terrified and confused, upon hearing that, but Kazuma squeezed her hand and

"No. In Japan I was a failure. I had no friends and my family relations were so bad that they laughed at my death. Here I have it all, money, fame, I've even found love of my life…"

"Oi Darkness, what is that pervert talking about? And why is he holding Megumin's hand like that? Should I intervene?"

"A-Aqua don't tell me…"

"I want to stay in this world forever

"I knew you would say that. If that is the case, allow me to make an offer to you."

"What kind of offer are you talking about?"

Suddenly a bunch of familiar pieces of paper appeared on the ground.

"You see Kazuma-san, the demon king you defeated is just the first of many more calamities, that still threaten this world. It's only natural to ask you for future cooperation."

"A-Aqua, you knew about that?"

"Of course. What didn't I tell you already? That's weird…"

That's the useless goddess for you. Forgetting about the most important part, it's so much like her… Kazuma smiled under his nose, the though brought back memories.

"If you're fine with that, I would like to ask you to continue your endeavors and help bring peace to the world.

"Then Kazuma, hurry up, choose something and go away from here."

"Huh, what are you talking about?"

"I'm sorry Darkness but I'll be staying here in heaven. It was part of the deal that I would be able to return here, once we defeat the demon king. I was adventuring with you, because Kazuma decided to break the rules and take me with him, instead of one of those relics, that are laying on the ground. I'm sorry but this is my home, so our adventure ends here…"

"Oi Eris, don't even bother with all those relics. There is only one thing I would want to take from here…"

"No no no. That's won't work again. Even if you beg for me, I still won't come with you…"

"Yes there is something here much more valuable than this bunch of overrated artifacts."

"Sweet words won't do it!"

"Yes, with her on our side, we are invincible, I wouldn't exchange our dear friend for anything!"

"Kazuma… You really mean it, I shouldn't but…"

"Eris, I'm taking you with me."

"Seem like it can't be helped I'll once again… WAIT WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?"

"Screw you Aqua, I'm not making the same mistake again. This time around, I'm taking Eris with us. With a proper goddess on our side…"

"You shit-NETT! Proper goddess?! Making the same mistake?! I know… y-you are just trying to force your way upon Eris, now that you failed with me! I won't allow you to do anything to my junior. I'm going with you, you like it or not. I have a feeling that if I'm not around, you might do something to Darkness, or even worse, Megu…"

"Well welcome on board again Aqua. I knew you would say that… wait, what's with that look on your face?"

"Eris you are feeling that too?"

"Huh senpai, what are you talking about… i-impossible, that's…"

"Oi Kazumaaa-san…"Aqua walked closer to Kazuma and wrapped her arm around his shoulder.

"Please explain to me…" She started with an innocent smile on her face.  
"Why do I feel a new life energy… "Her smile vas slowly vanishing.  
"COMING FROM THIS PLACE?!" As she said that, she pointed her finger right at megumin's belly.

"Huh? What do you mean… "

Kazuma felt silent. He understood what she meant by that. The reason Eris wasn't able to teleport Yunyun to heaven, wasn't because of some sort of mistake on her part. No, the reason for that, was because there were, in fact, five people present here already…

At the same time Megumin's eyes went wide open. She tied her hands around her waist as her face became red. Darkness collapsed to the ground while Eris hid her face in her hands.

"I can't believe this! You brute, you forced yourself upon Megumin and raped her!"

"N-no one raped her, we've been in a relationship for over a month. If you weren't such a fucking clueless idiot, maybe you would have noticed that something was going on!"

"Don't play dumb with me! If what you are saying was true, I would have noticed right away."

"S-senpai, please calm down, he is telling the truth."

"See Aqua you should listen to what Eris is say… wait, how do you know that. Don't tell me you've been spying on…"

"N-no, I'd never do anything like that! I just don't feel any negative energy from you, which means like you are not lying. Megumin-san please stop looking at me like that!"

"I didn't know that big boss had such a perverted side to her, as expected of a goddess that Darkness worships, birds of the feather flock together…"

As Eris was helplessly trying to explain everything, Aqua kept on getting in Kazuma's face.

"How dare you lay a finger on our innocent Megumin you rape-NEET?! if it was Japan you would be send to rot in prison for the rest of your life!"

"It was consensual and her parents were fine with that, You can't touch me! Besides, it's still impossible, I've been using the elixir every single time, there is no way she would get pregnant!"

"You piece of… Wait what did you just say?"

"I said that her parents…"

"No, after that."

"We've been using the potion Vanir created, so there is no way..."

Aqua slammed her forehead.

"Oh my god, that explains it. Oh no, what the fuck was that? A one-in-a-million chance, or one-in-a-fucking-billion? I can't believe this, I can't fucking believe this! What's with that shitty isekai setting, is this a fucking (**Redacted**)? That would explain why you suddenly started dual wielding!"

Aqua went ballistic. As Kazuma was losing track of what was going on, Eris with an uneasy expression on her face, approached him.

"Actually Kazuma-san, do you know how this contraception works?"

"Aside from it being a glorious Deus ex machina , that makes it impossible for the pregnancy to occur? I don't have a fucking clue."

"Impossible for pregnancy to occur! Yes, during the normal circumstances that may be true, but with what went on just a moment ago… I need a fucking drink."

Aqua continued losing her shit, until she materialized a bottle of wine in her hand and gulped it down in one go.

"If you don't know, then allow me to explain. You see, it is a special elixir that drains sperm cells out of their mana. Compare that to when Megumin-san uses her explosion. Excessive drainage of magical force, can leave the person unable to even lift a finger. Because of that, they are unable to move and even if the egg is present, they can't fertilize it. It's a simple but quite solid method of stopping pregnancy, but you see, when you channeled that final explosion together, there was a vast amount of mana flowing through both of your bodies, then, you see…"

"The sperm cells still present in her body got a power up and shoot forward…" Darkness, still laying on the ground added.

"And boom, through the beautiful process that follows, we reach the current situation! Congratulations, you two… Oh fuck me!" And Aqua, who somehow managed to get herself drunk already, finished.

Aside from Aqua, who was spewing curses over and over again, everybody felt silent.

"Please tell me, is the baby going to be fine? Isn't all that happened going to have a negative impact on it?"

Megumin asked Eris with a very concerned look on her face. Eris placed her hand on her shoulder and answered with a genuine smile.

"Don't worry Megumin-san, it's all going to be fine. It won't affect it in any bad way. In fact, it might even help it develop and grow stronger than normally."

"R-really, I'm glad."

"Yeah, after being given such a massive push on the start of its life I would be surprised if it didn't grow into some sort of a world level hero or some other ridiculous thing. Well that might have been the case, if it wasn't the child of a loser like Kazuma!"

No one was safe from Aqua's insults. And it seemed like she was only getting warmed up. Darkness finally got up.

"Kazuma why the hell things like that keep on happening. I though we've talked about safety…"

"And you, eroness. Stop bullshitting us with that wise, older sister act. You are only saying that, because you still can't get over the fact that Kazuma chose Megumin over you, and with that being the case you are not the one being railed by him, and have to seek assistance from your little friend that you keep under your…"

Aqua was fucking unstoppable, yet she didn't manage to finish the sentence, as Darkness, with a face red like a tomato, grabbed her by her neck and started suffocating her.

"Hahahaha…"

Suddenly Megumin started laughing. Everybody looked at her.

"So the time has finally came. It is just as Aqua said. The child of the strongest mage and a greatest hero is going to be born. The promised savior of this world, the one who should vanquish all evil and become the righteous ruler of all mankind. Yes that child… c-child… ch…  
Kazumaaa, what are we going to do?!"

She grabbed him by the collar and started shaking him. This was as far as she could get with this whole self-deceiving act.

"Huh, I knew something like that was going to happen sooner or later. Shit, this will require some paperwork…"

"Paperwork… YOU WALKING PILE OF DOG SHIT, YOU WANT TO RUN AWAY AND CHANGE YOUR NAME, HUH? I SAW THROUGH YOUR SCHEME, YOU WON'T GET AWAY WITH IT, I'LL CHASE YOU TO THE END OF THE WORLD…"

"Sphere of silence."

Kazuma silenced the drunken goddess, who had to be restrained by Darkness.

"Stop acting like a rabid dog or I'll throw you into the crocodile infested waters again, but this time without the cage."

One mention of the reptiles was enough to drastically change Aqua's behavior.

"Uh… I guess there is no helping it, Megumin give me your staff for a moment."

"Huh? What do you want to do with it…"

"Just hurry up."

"O-ok." She hesitantly handed it to him.

Kazuma took off the small metal band, that was located near the manatite orb.

Suddenly Megumin realized what was the purpose of it.  
Kazuma's weird behavior whenever she tried touching that part of the staff, her father's reaction from a month ago, it was all coming together…

"Aschente" A white light enveloped Kazuma's hand and after it dispersed a small golden ring with a red diamond appeared in Kazuma's hand.

"WHAT?!" Everybody in the room, apart from Megumin, shouted at the same time. She on the other hand was just standing there silent.

"K-kazuma, what is the meaning of this?" She finally asked after a while.

"Please don't make me explain more, it's already embarrassing as it is. So now…"

He looked at the rest of the girls.

"Nope, I'm not putting up the show for you." He grabbed Megumin's hand.

"Light refraction. Lurk. Sphere of silence."

He enveloped himself and Megumin with the spells, and disappeared from the view.

"Let's walk a little bit to the side Megumin. They can't hear and see us, but it's not like we disappeared completely."

"O-ok."

"What, where did those two go? Doesn't matter I can always do this, Massive sacre… "

Aqua was interrupted by Darkness who grabbed her and put a hand over her mouth.

"Let them have a little bit of privacy, Aqua."

They walked to the side. Once they were far enough from the rest…

"Ok seems like we are fine here… O-oi, Megumin, what wrong?"

As he turned around, he noticed a few large tears dropping from Megumin's eyes.

"To think you had something like that planned, I knew you were serious about me, but that's on a totally different level. Kazuma when did you came up with it?"

Kazuma smirked.

"Allow me to answer with a question. Do you remember what I said when I gave you your staff?"

"No way I would forget, it was the happiest moment of my life… wait, you are kidding right, there is no way.."

"Think about it as a gift to start a new path. That what I said at first. Then when you asked me what I meant by that, I answered with "Our path together, of course." Ever since that day, that ring, and the matching one that is on my staff were always there.

Megumin's heart skipped a beat. She could only watch as Kazuma slowly knelt down before her.

"We've been through a lot. We've killed numerous generals, conquered the world's most dangerous dungeon and finally slew the main villain himself. Compared to that, raising a child should be a fairly easy task."

He presented the ring before her. With each passing moment, she found it more and more beautiful.

"So Megumin, will you marry me?"

She didn't even answer him, instead she just

He grabbed her hand and slipped the ring on her finger. Then he rose up, hugged her and kissed her, while picking her up a little bit. Her tears didn't stop for even a second.

"Ok enough with those." He wiped her eyes with his hand.

"First you accepted me as an adventurer, then

"Ok, time to bring good news to others."

They walked closer to the waiting trio and Kazuma deactivated the invisibility. Megumin was the first one to speak.

"Allow me to reintroduce myself. I'm the archwizard who commands the strongest magic known to man. My name is Megumin Satou."

She rose her hand to show the ring to the rest of the girls.

"Come here you two."

Darkness quickly walked towards Megumin and Kazuma and hugged both of them. Eris started clapping her hands, while Aqua rose her eyebrow and gasped loudly.

"Seems like there is no other way. Come with me for a second Eris."

She grabbed the other goddess and both of them vanished.

Just as the trio of adventurers tilted their heads in confusion, they returned, and some other figures appeared in the room. Kazuma never saw any of them.

"A-aqua, what is the meaning of this?"

"Isn't it obvious? With a parents like you two, this child is doomed. As a goddess-godmother I have to protect this new life from any danger, so for starters I gathered everybody for one particular reason…"

"Oi, you can't possibly… "

"Yes, let us all give our blessings to it."

* * *

Kazuma and Megumin were sitting on a veranda of their mansion in Axel. It was a beautiful and calm summer evening, although one sound

"Oi, Schwi, please stop running around with mother's staff, I don't want to get yelled by father again!"

A 12 year old boy was chasing around a crimson eyed girl. A bunch of similarly aged kids were running behind him.

"Quite a lively bunch, aren't they?"

"My name is Schwi Satou, the future number one mage of the crimson demon clan. Today I'll show you my brilliance! Darkness blacker than black…"

"Oh that's cute she is acting just like a certain archmage, although technically we are not members of the crimson demon's clan..."

"Strike forth! Explosion!"

Suddenly an outburst of flames leveled a few trees in their backyard. Kazuma's jaw dropped to the ground.

"D-d-did she just cast a real explosion? A 9 year old kid casted the world's strongest spell entirely on her own?! How the hell did she even learn it in a first place…"

Kazuma looked over at his wife who turned her head away and started whistling.

"You must be kidding me…"

"Schwi what I told you about casting explosions so close to home… Oh shit father is looking that way. Teleport!"

A group of children vanished from the view.

"Wait, did he just teleport around ten people with him?! Even I'd have trouble with that… this kid is really going places."

The feat like that was only to be expected, as before his birth, he was blessed by about every major god and during the pregnancy Aqua would often hug Megumin's belly for hours and give her mana to the growing baby.

He was almost a perfect copy of Kazuma, although there was one major difference between the two of them, other than a color of his eyes…

"Let's count them down. First, we have a milf archetype with darkness. Then, Iris, who is somewhere between milf and older sister role, that Komekko plays for him. And finally he is super popular with girls his age and has a super cute little sister to call him oni-chan and then, there also her… Even though he is my son, I really feel envious of him…"

"You are a terrible father, Kazuma."

"I can't help that, rather than being like those shitty isekai heroes, I've been reduced to a father of one. He has everything, talent, popularity…"

"Kazuma…"

"And love and care from both of his parents. Stop looking at me like that Megumin, you know I would give everything off for him. Just let me grumble a bit, live as a noble can be annoying sometimes, just like with those ridiculous amount of marriage proposals for Rei. "

"Yeah, but despite some of them being really lucrative, you turned every single one of them down."

"Of course I did. There is only one person I ship him with… speaking about that, look there she comes…"

"Good evening Megumin-sama, Kazuma-sama. I hope I'm not bothering you…"

"Hina-chan I told you that you don't have to be so official with us, we are so close with your mother, that we are practically family, in fact in a near future we might actually be family, so for now please address us as aunt and uncle, as we asked countless times over."

"B-but that would be disrespectful to the members of the officially the second and in reality the strongest household in Belzerg…"

"Not if we say, that we are fine with it. Now, what can we do for you, sweetheart?"

"I wanted to ask where Rei and the rest are. We agreed to play together today, but…."

"He teleported away with the rest of the bunch, after schwi casted explosion in the garden. I'll let him know you came. Oi Rei can you hear me?"

"D-dad please don't be mad, I tried to stop her but…"

"Hina-chan came…"

"Oh, I see, please… Oi shuvi, don't try to pet that one shot bear!"

"One shot bear? Rei what…"

"Give us five minutes and we'll be back. Light of Saber!"

"What's with you Kazuma?"

"No it's nothing, he told me he'd be back in five minutes."

"Here Hina-chan help yourself to some candies, I'll tell maid to bring more once Rei comes back."

"Thank you Aunt-Megumin!"

She grabbed some sweets and run away to the garden, once she was far enough…"

"Oficially the second and in reality the strongest, huh?"

"Well, we have you, multi-billionaire and the world's strongest hero and me, who has finally been recognized as the greatest mage in history. On top of that our children are going to surpass us in no time, so that statement is probably true."

"Speaking about future of our children… It's been almost a year since that day."

"Hmm, oh yeah, now that I think about it, it's really been almost a year since that incident happened. Time surely flies by fast."

"When we were visiting the crimson demon village with Darkness, some older girls grew envious of how Hina was clinging to Rei all the time and decided to take her into the forest and prank her, but were attacked by a remnants of demon king's army, who took refuge in the woods. She let herself be captured so that the other girls were able to escape and bring help. Luckily enough, Rei, who had a bad feeling about that, had been following them already and was able to react in time."

"When Rei heard of that, he rushed to save her, killed those demons and many dangerous monsters including a fucking manticore, and then covered in wounds, carried her on his back, because she sprinkled her ankle."

"Then with many important personas present, she officially named him her knight and when he declined the offer saying that he is not "a silver armor wearing prick" and said that she would have to think of a better reward, she promised that she would marry him and even kissed him on the cheek. Belzerg stylish sword Hina, daughter of queen Lalatina of house Dustiness and king Jatis, the first princess of Belzerg proposed to him and he accepted, because he though that she was joking. The mess that followed…"

"Well, maybe I overreacted a little bit…

"A little bit? Some high ranking noble slapped Rei, because he wanted Hina to be married off to his son, and you almost killed him on the spot. Then when he threatened our family, you leveled his estate to the ground and Darkness exiled him from the country, because she learned that he was plotting to overthrow the monarchy. Ever since that day no one fucking dares approach Hina with marriage proposals, not even princes from the neighboring countries."

"Well, she is officially engaged to Rei and has a massive crush on him. He on the other hand is pretty strict other girls, but is always soft when it comes to Hina. although they are way too young for anything serious, I think something is bound to develop between them. I ship them."

"Speaking about shipments, look who just came."

"Hello there Hina. Did you see Rei? I wanted to challenge him to another battle today."

"No, just no. Look, Dust is one of my closest friends, but there is no chance in hell I'm letting his half crimson demon, delinquent of a son anywhere near my adorable daughter."

"Riku is Rei's rival as well as his best friend. Wouldn't it be like in those light novels, you told me about.

"Oi don't tell me you are planning to set something behind my back. You are just like your mother…"

"Our children really are something else. If only Rei didn't inherit your personality…"

"Is this really the kind of thing you should be saying to the world greatest hero, Kazuma-sama called "dual death"?"

Needless to say, Rei was a prodigy. He had immense talent in both swordsmanship and magical arts. His mana reserves were ridiculously high, he had a genius level intelligence, and his luck…

If I ever run out of money, I can just take him to Elroad with me. He'd be probably able to bankrupt the entire country in a single day, but that would be troublesome for Iris Kazuma smiled under his nose with that thought.

"I'll do everything I can to build a better future for Rei and Schuvi. If only she was there to see it all…"

A sudden flash of light interrupted their conversation. They covered their eyes, and then they saw two people standing before them.

"So you two were really busy again, huh?"

Those two individuals were…

"Aqua! Eris!"

"You two have been going at it like crazed rabbits, huh?"

"W-what the hell are you implying Aqua?!"

Megumin's face shifted to a shade similar to the color of her eyes.

"I'm not implying anything, I'm just stating the truth. Maybe I shouldn't have made that promise to you after all…"

Suddenly Kazuma realized what she was getting at. What she was saying, combined with Aqua's and Eris's sudden arrival, it's all coming together…

"Wait wait wait, does that meant that…"

Rei's birth was a complicated one. If it wasn't for Aqua heavy involvement in the pregnancy he probably wouldn't survive. Because of that Aqua made a promise, that she would look after any future children of Kazuma, which she did when Megumin became pregnant with Schwi. Aqua was trying to visit them as often as possible, but because the world was starting to stabilize, she had to turn her attention elsewhere. Her sudden arrival now, could only mean one thing…

"Yes Kazuma-san, seems like Satou household is going to grow again…"

"Aunt Aqua! Aunt Eris!"

A bunch of children suddenly appeared out of thin air and two of them immediately jumped onto the goddess of water.

"Look at him using the last of his childish charms to shamelessly shove his face into Aqua's boobs. I can only say one thing… I'm proud of you my son."

With an evil grin, he gave a thumb up to Rei to which he smiled in the same manner and responded in kind.

"We should probably think of a name…"

Megumin mumbled while gently massaging her belly.

Kazuma looked at the scene before him. His heart was overflowing with happiness and bliss. He firmly gripped a hand of his wife. Seeing Aqua hugging his son and daughter… in this moment, his eyes became watery.

Aqua looked at Kazuma, who was crying tears of pure happiness. She smiled, and let Eris have her turn hugging with the two kids.

Then she spread her arms as if she was casting something.

It was a blessing. A god's blessing on this wonderful world.

**The end.**


End file.
